


Ohana

by EmeraldsAndAmethyst



Category: Marvel 616, Scarlet Spider (Comics), Spider-Man (Comicverse), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Endgame Ship of Vance Astrovik/Kaine Parker, Established Peter Parker/Mary Jane Watson, Eventual Miguel O'Hara/Kaine Parker - Freeform, Eventual Vance Astrovik/Kaine Parker - Freeform, Explicit Language, Extremely Slow Burn, Family Bonding, Family Drama, Family Feels, Fix-It, Kaine Parker's terrible socialization skills, Married Peter Parker/Mary Jane Watson, Not Beta Read, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn, Swearing, Team Bonding, Team as Family, Unreliable Narrator, written on my phone
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:22:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 34,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23817607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmeraldsAndAmethyst/pseuds/EmeraldsAndAmethyst
Summary: (you do not need extensive knowledge of spider-man or scarlet spider canon. AN has an explanation of what is canon in this AU.)Ohana, Hawaiian for family.Family means no one gets left behind, or forgotten....A long winding tale of Kaine Parker coming to terms with being part of a family. Strange and weird and found as it is.
Relationships: Miguel O'Hara/Kaine (Spider-Man), Peter Parker/Mary Jane Watson, Vance Astrovik/Kaine (Spider-Man)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 19





	1. Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaine finishes with his unpleasant business in New York and considers visiting his brother. Peter finds him after he's decided to head back to Houston.

(apologies for having an author's note in the body of the chapter, but my AN was too long for the box and kept getting deleted)

AU Information:  
*) Peter and Mary Jane have always been married. Mary Jane had a miscarriage in the past. 

*) Superior Spider-Man occurred in the vaguest of sense (I never read it as I find the very concept loathsome, but I like the idea of writing Peter recovering from this extremely awful event with the support of MJ and Kaine). MJ moved to Malibu and lived separated from 'Peter' during this time. 

*) Octavius established Parker Industries and had a relationship with Anna Maria before 'dying' / losing Peter's body to Peter's soul-consciousness-whatever. Anna Maria is aware that the Peter Parker she knew was actually someone else entirely and is still employed at PI. Things are currently extremely complicated for her private life but she is a professional at work.

*)Computer (the AI at Parker Industries similar to Jarvis and Friday but not sentient) was created by Octavius ripping/copying brain patterns from MJ, Anna Maria and others.

*) Kaine Parker was revived at the end of... I think it was Spider Island? Look, the Spider Man continuity is jank. I'll summarize the important parts for you: so like Kaine was emo 90s long haired body falling apart nearly crippled by chronic pain Kaine and then he sacrificed himself to save the world/reality/whatever and he's now shiny new body without chronic pain kaine and instead of spewing shitty emo-goth poetry he spews vulgarities

*) Kaine moved away from NYC, intending to run away to Mexico and drink margaritas on the beach and never ever be a hero ever again. Spoilers: he didn't even make it out of New York City before helping someone in distress (this is canon for the Scarlet Spider run by Christopher Yost)

*)Assume the entire Scarlet Spider and New Warriors runs by Christopher Yost are canon. (and if you can find them I highly recommend them) To summarize: Kaine makes it as far as Houston, Texas before accidentally uncovering a werewolf led coyote ring and saving a teenager from a shipping container full of corpses in the Port of Houston. In order to keep this as yet unnamed child safe, Kaine declares himself her uncle so she can be treated without being deported. He then attempts to yet again leave the country but doesn't make it out of the hospital before fighting a super villain hunting this child. 

*) The child has severe amnesia and unknown powers that involve telepathy, telempathy, levitation and empathic manipulation with potentially unknown other powers. She is extremely powerful and learns English by 'reverse info dumping' the knowledge from Kaine's mind. She learns any language she needs in this way, but woke up only speaking Spanish. Her name is Aracely Penalba. She lives with Kaine and despite his vocal declarations of not caring he cares. deeply. 

*) Various shenanigans occur with Kaine and Aracely. The end result is they both join the recently re-establish New Warriors, with Vance Astrovik AKA Justice and Robbie Baldwin AKA Speedball formerly Penance formerly Speedball. Yes, this is the same Justice and Speedball from the same New Warriors that accidentally kicked of the first Marvel Civil War event by trying to take down a villain inside of a school.

*) Aracely has zero concept of personal, private thoughts and finds Robbie's trauma fraught mental landscape 'dreamy' and has a ridiculously adorable teenage crush on him. Robbie is uncomfortable about this and has told her to not bring up Penance or those thoughts to him or anyone else.

*) Now, AU canon for me and this fic, Kaine is rich with illegal money that he steals from human traffickers and cocaine/meth/hard drug dealers. He violently beats them up but does not kill them. He doesn't particularly care if they die from trauma before the police etc arrive on scene but he's actually trying VERY HARD to not be a villain. (in canon he declares that killing Kraven was his last time killing anyone, also he revived Kraven after killing him as a massive Fuck You to him and then he flees Houston out of fear of his very presence there endangering his new friends)

*)Kaine bounces between staying in presidential hotel suites (either for free for being Houston's very own spider hero or via cash from his stolen gains) and living in absolutely horrible apartments with literally only the barest of furnishings, and those in pretty bad shape.

*) He cares for Aracely and is having the second most powerful telepath he knows (Vance) train Aracely to help her with her control, finesse and learning acceptable uses of her powers. She lives most of the time at Mt. Wundugore (the New Warriors new home base) with Justice, Speedball and Jake Waffles (basically a furry dog, he's drawn both as a basset / beagle and a terrier mix so feel free to imagine whatever adorable dog furry you want), kid Nova (Sam Alexander) sometimes visits, though once he joins the avengers, then quits the avengers and forms the champions, his visits are much less frequent.

*) other new New Warriors characters will be summarized in the ANs of any chapters they appear in so you need not worry about knowing who exactly is who

***

Kaine Parker, in his Scarlet Spider suit, sat perched on the shadows on the side of one of the many tall buildings in New York, New York. His unpleasant business here was finished, and he should have already been in his way back to Houston, Texas. Instead, he was busy talking himself out of visiting his nominal brother. Well, technically clone and the source of about oh, eighty percent of all of his problems in life. Besides, you know, actually being alive.

He could leave. While Peter undoubtedly knew he was here, he also knew that Kaine wasn’t exactly the ‘drop by for tea’ type. If he just left, his brother would understand. When the steady, soft thwips of weblines reached his ears he was hoping it wasn't actually Peter. He had no idea _why_ the rest of the spiders stayed in this shit hole city. But maybe it would be Jessica… wait was she still swinging? Wasn't she a mom now? Maybe it would be one of the kids.

His hopes were yet again dashed as Spider-Man landed just below him. It was without a doubt his annoying as fuck clone slash brother and not O'Hara or the scrawny kid that Nova was running around with now. Why the fuck did they all call themselves _Spider-man?_ The glowing, sparkling red and _blue_ suit was an eye searing, tacky, morally offensive giveaway to his brother's self.

“How are you not dead yet with a fucking glowing target on your chest?”

  
“Hey hey! Fancy meeting you here!” Peter said cheerfully. “What’s got your suit in a twist?”

He ignored Kaine's question entirely. Typical.

“None of your business,” Kaine grunted, not bothering to look at him. As far as greetings went this one was practically friendly. Faced with the reality of his perfect brother, Kaine decided that actually, he really did not want to spend time with him or his even more perfect wife. He wanted to get back to Houston and taking care of human trafficking trash. 

“Don't you have a girl to go home to? Why the fuck are you out swinging on a quiet night if Red’s at home waiting for you?” he snarled. If Kaine had a sweet lady like MJ… hah. As if anyone as kind and good as Mary Jane had done anything to deserve his awful self inflicted on them for eternity.

“Um, yeah, so,” Peter began, getting wound up for what was looking like a ‘delightful’ speech. Kaine sighed, bracing himself to swing away. Peter panicked.

“Wanna fuck MJ?” he blurted before Kaine could shoot a line.

Kaine blinked. Turning to look at his brother. How had he been made from _this_ idiot?

“There is something seriously wrong with you,” he said blankly, then shot a webline, trying to get away from the weirdness that was his fucking life.

“I get that. Like, a lot, but hey!” Peter swung after him. 

Of course that doesn’t work when the guy you’re cloned from can web swing, too. 

“I kinda don’t wanna shout this across half of New York! Let me explain! Please!” Spider-man called after him.

“I don't care about whatever weird shit is happening in your life, just leave me out of it,” Kaine grunted in frustration. Of course Peter wouldn't just let him be. Of course this was going to become a **thing** _,_ but that didn't mean Kaine couldn't try his damndest to escape it. 

He should have stayed in Houston.

“I should have stayed in Houston,” Kaine complained.

“Kaine! For MJ, please! At least listen!” Peter shouted, keeping pace with him easily. He was whining as much as he could while swinging. Kaine contemplated kicking him through a building. “She wants something that I can’t do, I tried! But you could totally do it!”

Kaine hated being a clone. 

He had endless, frustrating, cruel _and_ annoying reasons to hate being a clone. One of the top ones was that Peter Parker knew exactly the right words to say to make him listen.

“Fucking-” Kaine muttered angrily to himself as he landed on a rooftop. 

Peter landed next to him, crouching low. 

“What's wrong with her? Is she in danger?” He asked, hating how much of his concern was evident in his voice.

“Um, noooo. No. Not, uh. Not exactly. She uh, she wants to be though?” Peter poked at the gravel of the rooftop, pointedly not looking at Kaine.

“She's not- what the fuck Parker. What the hell do you want from me if she's not in danger?” Kaine half-shouted, frustrated. Dealing with Spider-Man was like pulling teeth. 

Painful and a bad idea to do on your own.

“I, uh, I was serious. Do you wanna get busy with MJ? I can’t do what she wants and I,” Peter huffed, “I tried! But, but I couldn’t. Not since I’ve been back. And I really, really want her to be happy. I mean she says it’s fine, but you and I both know she’s just being nice. I don’t want her to, I dunno, I just want her happy! Please?”

Peter looked up, adding, “I trust you, brother.”

Shitting fuck. 

“Are you being mind controlled? Get body swapped again? Because that's the only reason I can think you'd be here asking _me_ to fuck your girl,” Kaine said, growling low and stalking around Peter in threat. He was surprised, confused. The temptation to pop his wrist spikes was strong. Call him a cynical bastard, but shit like this **never** happened without something awful following close behind. He popped them anyway, he hated how good it felt. Hated how his pulse raced at the prospect of a really _good_ fight. Hated his damned brother for being the entire reason he was even on this ball of dirt. 

“What? No, no, no! I mean, okay, I can see how you might, **possibly** think that, but **seriously** no!” his brother fidgeted, “Please don’t stab me! It’s really me! Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man! And also your bro!"

Kaine still considered stabbing him. It would do him some good, keeping him on his toes and forcing him to stop relying so much on his stupid fucking spider sense.

“I know it’s weird! Okay! I know! But I’ve tried!" Spider-man let out a heavy breath and went on, "I've tried to do what she wants. And I just can’t do it. It's so damn stupid! We used to do this all the time! Okay well, maybe not **all** the time, but like, you know, enough of the time! But now I just can't! Not anymore! And then! Then I thought to myself, ‘Spidey there has got to be a way to give your super most awesomest supermodel slash actress slash journalist slash badass wifey exactly what she wants even if you can't do it for her **and** be happy for her too!’ so then I said to myself ‘Spidey-”

“Will you just shut up,” Kaine groaned. He relaxed now, certain that this was actually Parker. No one else could possibly talk that much and sound so stupid. He pulled in his spikes and rubbed his forehead. “Fine you're **you**. I still have no fucking idea what you're talking about.” 

"I was getting to that part!" Peter said, offended and now in a snit. Kaine so did not want to spend the rest of his visit dealing with his clone's fucked up bullshit. **Especially** if he had to hear about it from the source of all his problems itself. It would be so much easier talking to MJ.

"Is Red at home?” Kaine said, interrupting his brother. He'd started on again with his totally unnecessarily long winded rambling explanation.

Peter wiggled happily at him. He just barely caught himself trying to wiggle back. Stupid fucking spider shit. Ugh. Kaine resigned himself to a terrible few hours. 

At least. 

“Yes! MJ’s home! You’ll help? Great! Let’s go!” Peter said, leaping off the building and swinging away. Kaine guessed back to the former Baxter Building now headquarters of Parker Industries. 

“I didn't say-” Kaine growled in frustration as Peter swung away. “I hate my life,” he told the empty rooftop, then swung after his crazy brother. 

This was going to be painful.

***


	2. Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With many, many regrets Kaine follows Peter back to his too expensive, too nice home at the former Baxter Building. But only because he was promised an explanation for Peter's insane request from Mary Jane.

Peter flipped gracefully onto his penthouse balcony. He tugged off his mask and bounced to the ceiling once inside, hips wiggling in that satisfied ‘I have solved a problem and am awesome’ spidery way that happened sometimes. It made Kaine want to punch him.

“What’s gotten into you, Tiger?” Mary Jane asked, raising one perfectly groomed eyebrow as she looked up from her tablet.

“It's not a body swap. Already checked that off,” Kaine said, pulling off his mask as well. It wasn't like Mary Jane didn't know him, after all. He followed Peter in at a slower pace. “I think he's just like this. Hey Red.” 

Mary Jane looked over to Kaine with a pleased, surprised, smile. He squelched the flutter of happiness at her apparent pleasure at seeing him. He didn’t deserve that.

“Kaine! It’s been too long! You should stop by as soon as you’re in town you know! I can’t believe I have to learn about your visit from the DBC!” Mary Jane said, setting the custom designed PI tablet down on the end table and sitting up. Her designer silk robe showing exactly the perfect amount of leg as she moved.

She frowned at Peter. Peter was oblivious. Seemingly barely containing himself.

Kaine swallowed, Peter's garbled request suddenly at the forefront of his mind. He still had no idea what was going on, but he couldn't deny that MJ was as gorgeous as ever. He resolutely avoided looking at her legs. Or her lips. Or her… 

“It wasn't a planned visit. I just end up in this hellhole of a city against my will,” he grumbled. Then, softer, “you look good.” 

It was about as close to a ‘nice to see you too’ as Kaine could get. 

“New York does have a way of hanging onto you, doesn’t it?” Mary Jane teased, then graciously, “Thank you, Kaine.”

“MJ always looks good!” Peter said, puffing up his chest as if he was somehow responsible for this development.

Kaine stood awkwardly as he looked between Peter and MJ. “Yeah. Uh…” 

Why did he let himself get dragged into these situations? He focused his attention on Mary Jane, figuring it'd be best to deal with the one sane person in the room. 

“Think you could explain to me why your husband cornered me on a roof and asked me to fuck you?” 

Peter stopped wiggling in place.

Mary Jane directed her suddenly steely gaze at her husband.

“That is a very good question, Kaine,” Mary Jane said. 

“I can explain!” Peter blurted. Mary Jane waited patiently for the imminent confession. Kaine started creeping slowly towards the balcony exit.

“I wanted to do the thingy, but then I couldn’t do the thingy, and I know! I know you said ‘don’t worry about doing the thingy’, but I worried about doing the thingy and then! Then I thought ‘Spidey there has got to be a way to give your super duper most absolute awesomest supermodel slash actress slash journalist slash badass wifey exactly what she wants and be happy for her too!’ so then-”

“Peter, which thingy,” Mary Jane interrupted.

“Ah, eheheheh, you know, the, um, the sexy thingy with the,” Peter made some hand motions that could have meant any number of things that were not at all helpful. Amazingly, Mary Jane was able to interpret Peter’s exact meaning.

“Right, that ,” she said with a much put upon sigh. “Peter?”

“Yes love of my life?” Peter said, fidgeting anxiously on the ceiling.

“Did it occur to you, at all, maybe once, that this is the sort of thing that maybe, just maybe you should talk about with your wife before doing ?!” Mary Jane said, managing to somehow yell without raising her voice.

“Oh.” Peter said. Realization dawning.

“Um.” Peter added, stalling. MJ waited him out.

“Nnnnnno?” Peter finally answered, crouching nearly flat against the ceiling now.

Kaine almost smiled at that. 

“I have no idea what the fuck is happening, but can I go now?” Kaine asked, doing his best to look innocently confused and uncomfortable. It wasn't hard. 

“Kaine, sit,” Mary Jane said, pointing at the sofa across from her chaise lounge.

“Peter,” Mary Jane didn’t bother with words, pointing at the door to their bedroom instead. Peter slunk, defeated, to their room.

Kaine frowned as he watched Mary Jane storm after Peter and slam the door. 

He could leave right now if he wanted to. MJ wasn't his wife. She couldn't tell him what to do. And he didn't give a damn about what Peter wanted. 

Like fuck he was going to take orders from the Parkers.

Kaine sat. 

But only because he wanted to hear Peter get yelled at. 

And yelled at he was. 

Kaine couldn't make out the words, exactly, but MJ's tone was… Well, pissed off was an understatement. It warmed the cockles of his cold, dead heart hearing the source of all his stupid responsible urges getting torn a figurative new one by his wife. If only she could tear out his own responsibility as easily as she tore into Peter.

The talk went on long enough that Kaine grabbed one of Mary Jane’s fashion magazines off of the table. He was flipping through it in horror when the couple finally emerged. He flung it down, schooling his features back into that lost puppy look that'd gotten Peter in so much trouble before. 

Peter followed Mary Jane from the bedroom. Very sulky. Very grumpy. As soon as he saw Kaine’s expression he glowered at him. Hiding behind Mary Jane in relative safety.

“Kaine, I’m sorry Peter didn’t explain anything,” she said, genuinely sorry as she crossed the ridiculously large living room to sit across from Kaine. She turned to glare at Peter, “To anyone.”

Peter perched on the end table and did his best to look properly chastened. Kaine was sure he had plenty of experience, what with as awkward as he was.

“Why the hell can't he fuck you? I know he can get it up,” Kaine said, reasonably sure that if Peter were having issues he'd be having them himself, being a clone and all. “What do you need me for?” 

“Of course I can get it up!” Peter bristled, offended.

“Enough!” Mary Jane said looking between them. “Kaine, try to not provoke Peter. Please.”

Mary Jane turned to Peter, “And Peter! Be quiet!”

“Yes MJ,” he sulked.

“It isn’t exactly plain, vanilla sex,” Mary Jane said, cheeks blushing, “I would really like to be tied up. And Peter,” she sighed and shrugged.

“I, uh, I can’t leave her tied up,” Peter muttered, glaring at the floor as his blush turned his ears pink. “Not even if she asks. Can’t even get rough. It’s been like that since… Uh, since I got back. I freak out.”

The reminder of Ock was enough to make Kaine bristle angrily before he had a chance to process. Ready for a fight just at the thought of that evil fuck. And then he did process the request and… well...

What did he even say to a request like that?

Kaine blinked at MJ. Then at Peter. 

What the fuck. 

His brother couldn't tie up his girl so he was asking him to? 

He stared blankly at them, unable to find words. 

“Peter came to you because he trusts you,” Mary Jane said, looking earnestly into Kaine’s eyes. “We both do, and he knows that.” 

Kaine had to look away. She'd said she trusted him. They both did. He wished that didn't make him feel so good. He didn't deserve anyone's trust. He especially didn't deserve Mary Jane's trust.

“But we’ve had a talk,” she continued, looking pointedly over to Peter. “And Peter realizes now how wildly inappropriate it was to ask you that. And to try to bully you into it.”

“I didn’t bully him! He’s like, impossible to bully! Look at him!” Peter whined. And while this was generally true, if anyone could bully Kaine it was his brother.

Kaine spared a glare for Peter before turning back to MJ. Finally, someone was talking sense today. If he didn’t know better he’d have guessed he’d fallen through a portal into one of the weirder alternate universes.

“That doesn’t mean we don’t need your help though,” she continued, as though Peter hadn’t spoken. “Because while it is absolutely no big deal that Peter can no longer be… rough,” she said delicately. Behind her Kaine tried to ignore Peter, who was mouthing ‘it's a big deal! it is!’ 

“He’s been off in other ways as well,” Mary Jane said.

She completely ignored the scandalized sound Peter made.

“He, we think that maybe it’s a spider-person thing. And you’re a bit of an expert on struggling against the spiderier bits,” she said, making it sound like it was something he should be proud of. Like he wasn’t a horrifying monster capable of just as much terror as Doc Ock had ever been. 

Kaine shifted, looking down at his wrists. They looked deceptively normal. But he could feel his web glands just under his skin. Not painfully full like when he was stuck in Houston. The damned Texas bayou city barely had any buildings tall enough to swing from, but he'd learned it's web ways and crawl ways and for as much as he hated it, he hated NYC more. 

And he could feel the fragmented bone, ready to pierce his skin just as easily as it always tore through others.

“There are other spiders that can help. Better spiders,” Kaine said, flexing his fingers. Spiders who hadn’t done the things he had. Ones who were actually complete people and not one solid hit away from becoming a man sized, man eating spider beast. 

“Yes. But like I said, you seem most qualified,” MJ said, placing her hand on his wrist. Kaine startled at the gentle touch, looking up at her face. Her expression was honest, kind. Just the slightest bit pleading. “I trust you. I like you, and so does your brother.”

Instead of the expected protest, all Kaine got when he looked over at Peter was a solemn nod. 

“I do. And MJ is right. I haven’t been exactly myself,” he said, then cringed at the wording. Ock had fucked with more than just one life when he’d stolen Peter’s.

MJ didn't touch him, but she looked at Peter with such love in her eyes that Kaine felt almost sick.

“I mean, she just came up with the idea right now, and I’m sure you’ll make me regret it but, y’know, if you can help I’m game.” Peter said.

“It’s completely up to you, Kaine,” Mary Jane added, looking back at him and making eye contact again. “It’s okay if you don’t want to. We know you have other commitments in Texas. But we would appreciate it if you did decide to try to help.”

Kaine doubted there was a person on earth who could meet Mary Jane and not want to give her anything she wanted. But she had to be crazy. Who in their right mind would trust him ? Would like him? Yes, his adopted niece adored him, but she had a war god stuck in her head. Probably, even without having to deal with that unique hell, she didn't count.

Kaine had no idea what they even wanted from him. First it had been Peter’s unhinged request to bang his wife, and now this. Whatever this was supposed to look like. Though, he guessed if Peter was desperate enough to consider letting Kaine fuck his gorgeous wife, it must be pretty serious.

But she’d given him an out. It would be easy enough to take it. Claim he needed to be in Texas. Let someone else help Peter with whatever weird fucking thing was going on with him. Someone smart, and good. Someone they actually should trust.

“I have to…” Kaine said, looking back at Mary Jane. Her full lips and perfectly tousled vivid red hair, her kind, understanding eyes and genuine sincere expression. The word ‘go’ died on his lips. He was trapped in this fancy fucking apartment with his stupid trusting clone and his beautiful caring wife more thoroughly than any actual trap he’d ever been in. He finished with, “Think about it.”

Mary Jane smiled at him, she was so fucking perfect Kaine couldn’t stand it. He looked over to Peter. Peter was glaring at him as if he thought he was about to bolt. Which he was, of course. But still, he didn’t need to be such a jerk about it.

“Of course, Kaine! Take your time, I understand entirely,” Mary Jane agreed. She leaned back against the chaise lounge, for all appearances satisfied with how things had turned out. Mary Jane’s robe slid open just enough for him to catch a glimpse of the smooth pale skin of her breast. The barest hint of the darker flesh of her nipple. 

He looked away, face heated. 

“He’s gonna run back to Houston first chance he gets,” Peter said, sulky and surly. 

“Fuck you,” Kaine managed. It was half hearted at best. His heart was racing, MJ was too beautiful, too good. It was bad enough he had Peter's memories of intimacy with Mary Jane, he didn't need to fucking ogle her in her own apartment, too.

“See! See, I’m right!” Peter declared, gesturing at Kaine as if he somehow was proving Peter’s point.

Mary Jane turned back to Kaine. The flash of hurt before she put on an understanding expression nearly burned him. He felt like a complete asshole. Which he was, but still. 

“Peter, please. It’s Kaine’s decision. I’ll be in bed, try not to destroy the apartment. Again,” she said, standing up. She grabbed her tablet from Peter’s perch and headed for the master suite.

“That was one time! And it wasn’t me! It was-” he cut himself off at the tired look MJ flashed him.

“I’m sorry, sleep tight,” he said, immediately contrite.

“Good night Tiger, Kaine,” she said softly.

Kaine watched her go, his eyes tracing the silhouette of her body through the thin silk of her gown. As soon as she was out of sight he snapped his attention to Peter, a muscle clenching tight in his jaw. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you,” he hissed, keeping his voice low. “Who the fuck just asks their brother, clone, whatever, to fuck their wife!?”

“Me?! What the fuck is wrong with you?!” Peter hissed back. “I just want MJ to be happy! The fuck is wrong with that?”

“She is happy. You have a perfect thing here, what the hell are you doing bringing me into it?!” Kaine struggled not to shout. Fucking stupid fucking Peter . "She doesn't give a shit if you can't rough her up.” 

Peter drug his hands across his face in frustration.

“She says that, yeah! But you and I both know-! I dunno! Fuck!” Peter rubbed roughly at his eyes with the back of his wrist. “I only just got this body back not even half a year ago! I’m so fuckin’ lucky she just moved out to Cali instead of filing for a divorce. Christ! If that bastard wasn’t dead I’d-”

The end table splintered under Peter’s grip.

“Ah, fuck,” he hissed, bounding to the back of the sofa as the ruined table collapsed. He looked back over to Kaine, “I think I’d kill him.”

Shitting Christ. 

Kaine was not ready for fucking emotions. He wasn't cut out for this shit. 

“MJ told you not to break the apartment,” is what he said when he finally found his voice. 

He remembered Ock calling him a monster, making him doubt his brother; doubt himself and his capacity for being any kind of good. He remembered Ock living in Peter's body thinking that he'd killed him. Neglecting all of the people Peter loved to follow his own twisted whims. 

Peter wouldn't kill Ock if he was alive. No. Kaine would get to him first. 

“Listen. Shit. Just… Relax before you do something even more stupid than all the other crap you've done today,” Kaine said helpfully. 

But instead of relaxing, Peter instinctively dropped into a more threatening crouch, clearly still thinking about the fucked up shit Ock had done in his body.

Kaine shifted too, ready for a fight before he remembered himself. With great difficulty he tried to relax, with mixed results. 

“Fucking Christ, Peter. Will it shut you up if I agree to… Ugh,” Kaine scrubbed his hand down his face, groaning in frustration. 

Peter gave himself a shake, and took a much less threatening perch on the back of the chaise lounge. His lips twisted in a wry, bitter smile as he looked away.

“Well, you know me. I never shut up,” Peter said, then sighed and looked back to his clone. His brother. 

Kaine grunted acknowledgement.

“I’d feel a damn site better if I knew MJ was getting what she wanted. She deserves so much more than what I'm giving her. I'm doing the best I can, keeping PI running and being her husband and still being Spider-Man. But...” Peter said, trailing off. Then he laughed, the tension draining from him.

“Seriously, I’m so fucking stupid! I see MJ tied up and I just, cannot! It's like, like there's something wrong with it? Like, ugh, I can't even begin to describe it so that it makes any kind of sense but I gotta get her out of it,” Peter admitted.

“You are stupid,” Kaine agreed with an annoyed sigh. “She wouldn’t ask you to tie her up if it didn’t get her off. She trusts you. That should get you hard as a rock,” he said, then winced. This was so weird. Talking to Peter about sex felt wrong. Though Kaine had enough teenage memories to… no. Not going there. 

Peter sighed.

“She gets me hard, she’s fucking perfect! Of course she gets me hard! But seeing her tied up? I panic, completely lose it. Even when I tie her up, apparently,” he said, shrugging helplessly. “And I keep, I dunno. My body is doing all these things, I’m reacting differently than I used to. I keep breaking things, and starting fights I don’t want to be in, and doing all this weird shit like…," Peter flexed his hands as if trying to literally grab an example, "like for example, I can’t even have sex with my wife if I don’t bring something for her to eat or drink. And like, she has to have it after, or I just like… flip the fuck out and leave. Who does that?!” 

Kaine grunted. He was well familiar with those spider instincts. Though his own solution of casual fucking and running was not one that would work here.

"You get that way too?!" Peter looked so relieved, so grateful. Kaine couldn't stand it. There was no reason a man as kind and amazing as Peter Parker should ever feel gratitude to a freak of a monster like himself. But Peter had kept talking. Kaine cut him off, one thing at a time.

"Shut up. Yes, it's spider shit," Kaine told him.

Peter wiggled in place and kept looking at him with too much trust.

"You're the stupidest genius I know, I fucking swear. Look, right now, you're doing Spider shit. Hnnng," Kaine, very deliberately, mimicked Peter's body language. This is for MJ, Kaine told himself as he crouched and wiggled. He would remind Peter what being a spider was like and he could run back to Houston and never ever leave the sweltering hell swamp ever again.

But now he had to walk the fine line between being a guy with spider powers that behaved like a monster and a literal avatar of an unnamed spider god hell bent on eating everything near Kaine when it took his body over. Fucking peachy.

"The crouching, yeah, I remember that," Peter told him annoyed.

"Not just the crouching, dumbass. The… ugh, the wiggling and shit, too," Kaine explained. He wiggled at Peter again. It was incredibly subtle movements, especially as Kaine didn't really want to do it. But it should be enough to get Peter to focus on his instincts.

Peter furrowed his brows and wiggled his hips back, "Seriously? This? I thought it was just a thing?"

"Yeah, a spider thing. Congrats, you figured it out. Your stupid fucking wiggling is genetic spider bullshit. Now," Kaine gestured vaguely. He didn't actually know what sort of wiggling one did when trying to get one's spider self to be reassured about the non-lethality of a partner. So he wasn't entirely sure what came next.

"Now?" Peter asked, tilting his head to the side. 

"I don't fucking know! I don't have a wife! I don't even have a fucking girlfriend! I just fuck whoever looks good and run the fuck away before they, ugh, I know they aren't going to eat me, usually, but it's safer to indulge those spider instincts than… other ones," Kaine snarled lowly, keenly aware of Mary Jane getting ready for sleep in the other room. He stalked the ceiling, trying to shake out the frustration without breaking anything. 

"Oh," Peter said, watching him with way too much concentration for Kaine's liking. Cautiously, Peter flipped up to the ceiling. "Kinda concerned about that 'usually' you put in there, but okay then."

Kaine waited. Peter was thinking very seriously about something. While Kaine was perfectly capable of being as patient as a spider he didn't particularly like doing it. He didn't like how natural being on the ceiling felt. He didn't like how good it felt knowing Peter and Mary Jane trusted him so much. And he sure as hell didn't like a single fucking thing about New York City. 

"Let's see, what about…" Peter mumbled to himself. Then made even more of an idiot of himself as he tried to… Kaine had no idea what he was trying to do. He was moving around on the ceiling and wiggling mostly nonsense body language. Kaine guessed he was trying to find his spider instincts, maybe. 

It was both hilarious and painful watching him make an ass of himself. Kaine sighed.

"Would you stop that. Here, look just, just get over here and stop whatever the hell that is and be still," Kaine finally said.

Peter bounded over, too close. Carefully, Kaine gave in to his urges and hopped a body length away and wiggled. Back off : not prey

Honestly most of his useless spider instincts had to do with being prey or not prey. But whatever. It made Peter concentrate on him. Again with too much trust. Peter wiggled at him HI!!! NOT PREY HI!!!

Kaine bit back all of his preferred responses and told his idiot clone, "That's way more excited than anyone has any right being but, yeah. That's like, 'hello don't eat me hi' or something."

Peter looked so damn pleased over this that Kaine wanted to hit something. Kaine, grudgingly, told him, "you're so annoying. You're wiggling about how fucking happy you are."

"Oh! I am? Awesome!" Peter said, wiggling happy even 'louder'.

Kaine was already regretting agreeing to this. Hopefully it would be over soon.

“Oh! Hey, you have a suite of rooms here! I don’t think I told you that, yet,” Peter said, changing topics apropos of nothing.

Kaine blinked.

Peter had a suite for him? When the hell had that happened? 

“Guess it’s better than camping out in abandoned buildings all night,” Kaine grunted. 

Peter grinned, wiggling pleased and gesturing for Kaine to follow.

“You didn’t paint the rooms purple or something did you?”

“Heh, good one, but no! They aren’t purple. I think you’ll like ‘em! This floor and the next dozen down are restricted to people that know I’m Spider-Man. So, if you want, you can ditch the suit on ‘em and indulge your spidery urges. Or not,” Peter shrugged. “Whatevs."

Kaine grunted. The very thought of being so free felt paradoxically claustrophobic.

“You’re already in the systems, as you not me!” Peter preened, just a bit, at that. It was a pretty good trick, Kaine could admit. Only possible because of his own fucked up self, of course. A proper clone would always be identical to its DNA source. Peter went on, way too happy with himself, “And everything is voice activated. Just like Star Trek!”

“But you still haven’t invented a mute button for yourself,” Kaine muttered, though secretly he was impressed. 

“Hah, hah. No! You say ‘Computer! Elevator to the Scarlet Suite!’ and-” Peter tilted his head expectantly.

The elevator door opened with a rather familiar sounding ‘whoosh’. Peter gestured at the elevator with an excited ‘ta-dah!’ wave of his hands.

Kaine raised an eyebrow. 

“Scarlet Suite sounds like the name of a room at a brothel,” he offered in lieu of any sort of praise. 

Peter waved his hand dismissively as they got on the roomy lift. It chimed as it started moving.

“Whatever, you can change your suite’s name if you hate it that much. And, oh! You need to see the labs!” Peter did a little wiggle of excitement at the very thought. 

Ugh, Kaine so did not want that. It just reminded him of how fucking smart Peter was. And how smart he, himself wasn't. The memories of understanding that his own imperfect shit self couldn't translate into knowing any longer only grated on him.

The doors opened and the soft, pleasant tones of Majel Barrett declared, “Ninety second floor. Scarlet suite.”

Damn, Peter really had done his best to make his stupid building sound like a ship from Star Trek.

“We even have secret labs! Secret labs!” Peter rambled on as he literally bounded out of the elevator. This floor was split into two separate suites, instead of one massive suite like the penthouse. The door to the Scarlet Suite was the red of Kaine's super suit. The other door was blue, but not quite the blue Peter used on his own super suits.

Kaine entered, walking on the floor like the normal person he wasn't. Peter on the ceiling, still going on and on about the stupid labs that Kaine never wanted to see, not even once.

“It’s so cool! Miguel even has a future portal!”

Peter spun around and gestured wildly. Kaine dodged his idiot brother's unnecessary flailing to look everything over.

“The future Kaine! In my basement!” Peter squealed like a literal school girl at a boy band concert. It was excruciating.

“Great. I’m happy for you,” Kaine told him, as deadpan as he could manage. Even though he was genuinely happy that Peter seemed to have everything he'd ever wanted.

This place was high class.

It was amazing. 

Kaine wanted nothing to do with it.

“If O’Hara is around why didn’t you ask him to be part of your weird sex plans instead of harassing me?” Kaine asked, the thought hitting him suddenly. The spider from the future was a much better person than Kaine could ever hope to be. Way more deserving of the Parkers trust than a monster like him.

Peter stilled.

“Oh, you, uh, you still a luddite I guess? Or maybe it didn't make the national news? You must not have seen, he just lost his fiance. I couldn't ask him now ,” Peter said. After a moment he shrugged, “He took his new suit and has been scarce ever since, anyways.”

Oh. Well that explained things. At least a bit. There was a story there, and Kaine wanted no part of it.

He was really out of touch. Glad though, that he’d heard it from Peter and not Miguel. 

“Right,” he said, feeling awkward. What were people supposed to say to something like that? He supposed it was easiest to just say nothing.

“Where’s my room?” he asked instead, hoping Peter wasn’t planning on dragging him all around the building before he got to sleep. 

Peter twirled and posed, gesturing at everything on this side of the door.

“We're in ‘em!”

“All of these?” Kaine said, looking around wide eyed. 

Fuck. Peter was rich as hell now.

“Yup!” Peter said, popping the p obnoxiously. Not deliberately obnoxious, just something he did when nervous or excited. Kaine didn't do it, and he wanted to punch Peter every time he did.

“Great. Get out,” Kaine said, striding forward away from Peter. “I’m going to bed.”

“Okay! I'll show you your new suit tomorrow! And the labs,” Peter called out as he left. 

Kaine found himself a bed, a plush ridiculous thing with a thousand pillows and a huge fluffy comforter. It definitely beat sleeping on the floor of some run down vacant apartment.

He plopped down on top of the covers and buried his head in the pillows. Maybe when he woke up in the morning this would all turn out to have been a really fucking weird dream. 


	3. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaine wakes and realizes that everything is still terrible, but especially terrible is breakfast with his... **family**.

It wasn’t a dream.

“Good morning Kaine Parker, there is breakfast being served in the Parker Suite Kitchen on the 101st floor.”

The stupid Star Trek computer voice had him smiling before he was fully awake to stop it. Today was going to be a horrible day.

“I need a fucking shower,” he said to no one in particular. 

“The shower is located here,” the computer supplied, sliding open the bathroom door. He could have figured that one out on his own. Ugh.

He grumbled complaints as 60s music started playing. Grumbled as he stripped off his self cleaning super suit. He grumbled right up until the perfectly hot water hit his skin, melting some of the tension out of his body. He’d have to go upstairs soon and face Peter’s incessant talking. And Mary Jane's misplaced trust. He stalked back to the bedroom and checked the dresser. Real leather belts, okay, not what he needed but at least most of them weren't tacky fucking eyesores. Though Kaine was unhappy to see there was a definite theme to all of the decorated ones. And it wasn't spiders. He slammed the drawer closed and was annoyed when it didn't even crack. The next drawer was belt buckles. All of them oversized with stupid shit on them and most of them way too tacky for Kaine's taste. He slammed the drawer harder and the stupid thing still remained intact.

"Kaine Parker please do not break the furnishings. MJ designed these to withstand lower end spider strength and would be most unhappy to learn of their damage or destruction."

"Shut the fuck up," Kaine snarled at the damn computer. Why hell was it programmed to volunteer information? Fuck, just thinking about all the damn work that must have gone into this stupid dresser was giving him hives. He growled swears to himself and glowered at the stupid fucking furniture. Mary Jane should know better than to waste her time on him. 

The next drawer had jewelry. Honest to fucking God shitting jewelry. Real gold and platinum and some titanium pieces that actually looked like something Kaine might have picked out for himself. You know, if he actually wore any jewelry. He shut the drawer with excruciating care. Mr. Sandman played cheerfully while Kaine stared at the Goddamned ridiculous dresser that still had nine more drawers to investigate. The stupid, ostentatious piece of furniture designed by his far too perfect sister-in-law. Kaine hated how right he'd been about today. He hadn't even had breakfast and it was already horrible .

"Computer," Kaine said, biting the word like it physically pained him to address the computer.

"Yes, Kaine Parker, how may I be of assistance?" the stupid computer sounded so calm and relaxed. Kaine hated it.

"Why the fuck are you calling me Kaine Parker, every Goddamn time? That's fucking stupid. Stop it," Kaine snarled. He stalked back to the bathroom.

"Do you wish to change your casual designation in my systems, Kaine Parker?" 

Kaine growled wordlessly as he looked for his super suit. It shouldn't be that hard to find, it was still in red and black mode for fuck's sake. The computer didn't acknowledge his growl. Ugh.

"Yes, I want you to change my casual fucking designation," Kaine snapped.

"Request acknowledged. What would you like your new casual designation to be saved as in my systems?"

"Kaine!" He barked out. He wanted to add more just to help him feel moderately less terrible, but he also didn't need the computer doing something stupid like decide the entire angry spiel was to be his new name.

There was an excruciatingly long pause before the computer chimed a confirmation.

"Thank you, Kaine. Your information is now updated."

"Where the fuck is my super suit and where in the shitting hell can I find my clothes?" Kaine snapped, in lieu of any sort of acknowledgement.

"Your super suit is being maintenanced in the Spider Lab. Your garments are located here," the computer opened the closet door.

It was bigger than his shitty apartment back in Texas. Peter needed to fucking stop.

“MJ must have picked these,” Kaine grumbled to himself, feeling the ultra-soft fabric of one of the plain black t-shirts. It would be comfortable, unassuming. The softness a reminder of the lack of constant background pain.

“Mister Parker chose the majority of clothing in this closet,” the computer stated, like he’d been asking her. It. Ugh. “Though, MJ vetoed a few options due to what she referred to as ‘questionable taste.’ I defer to her judgement in all matters of fashion."

Kaine grunted at that. Yeah, MJ knew fashion far better than either himself or his brother. He settled on a plain undershirt and jeans. Even the goddamn denim was soft. Was they're anything in here that wasn't an absolutely extravagant waste of time effort and money?

His socks were just, just too much! And the shoes? Good God. Why? Kaine stared at his shoes. Way too many of them, of fucking course, but there was a pair of cowboy boots. Well, more than one. But this pair was black leather with red and orange and yellow patterns stitched into the upper. They reminded him of Aracely. The pattern wasn't even Aztec, not even Mexican, it was fucking Navajo. But the sentiment was there all the same. His defective brain didn't give a shit. Kaine put them on. Feeling a little bit less terrible with something else, besides his tattoo, to remind him of his ridiculous disaster ~~daughter~~ niece.

Right. Time to face the Parker family. 

***

Peter was darting between the kitchen table and the bedroom, trying to eat and get dressed at the same time. Taking twice as long in the process, no doubt. Mary Jane was sitting calmly at the table, reviewing her schedule on her tablet. Wearing a different silk robe than last night. This robe was not nearly as concealing as last night's. Her hair was still sleep mussed and make-up not yet applied. Kaine felt his mouth go dry.

She looked up from her tablet in surprise as Kaine entered.

“Oh! Kaine, good morning! Peter didn't mention you were stopping by for breakfast! Please, help yourself!” she said, gesturing at the side bar loaded with all sorts of tasty looking and amazing smelling breakfast foods. 

“Uh, thanks,” he said, glancing uncertainly at the food, away from Peter’s half-naked wife. She made her way back to the bedroom, graceful and elegant even like this. Peter dashed out again, finally mostly dressed. Just needing his suit jacket.

“Mornin' bro! The burritos are great!” he said, taking the chance to cram one in his mouth and practically inhale it. Kaine grabbed one for himself. It was good.

“You didn’t tell her I’m staying here?” Kaine said, mouthful of food. He shrugged and grabbed a plate. He was starving . He planned on eating as much of Peter’s food as possible. Peter shrugged, attempting to say something around his mouthful of food. He swallowed and thwipped another burrito to himself.

“I forgot? I was kinda busy last night, sorry?” Peter said between bites.

"What the hell were you doing after you showed me my room? You should've been in bed, idiot," Kaine growled. How could his stupid brother do anything but sleep next to his beautiful wife? Mary Jane stepped back out of the bedroom, hair brushed and simple foundation applied. Her casual, extremely indecent robe had been changed for an elegant dressing gown. She gave Peter a soft kiss on his temple as she passed next to him, returning to her seat.

“What did you forget this time, Tiger?” she asked Peter with fond amusement. Sipping at her coffee as she watched him wiggle nervously in his seat.

“Heh, you know. Kaine is staying with us. In his suite. For a bit. Um... Oh! I’m gonna show him his new suit! And the labs and the garage!” Peter said.“And then the seeeeecret labs, and then the secret, secret labs, and oh, oh, uh,” Peter rubbed the back of his neck and laughed nervously. Kaine sat, chewing as he watched Peter flounder, amused. “Oh, uh, and Kaine said he’ll help with the spider stuff. And then after I get him his new suit we can work together on another suit, and I can maybe make a Spider- Truck , trucks are big in Texas, right?” Peter didn’t wait for a response, continuing on, “And a Spider-Horse but like an awesome robot android horse not a-”

“Peter,” Mary Jane said. 

“Spider-Horse?” Kaine asked, perking up. A robot horse did sound fun.

“What was the first thing you said, Tiger?” she tried again.

“It was a truck right?” Kaine said through a mouthful of food. “Could use a good truck actually.” 

“No Kaine, the part before the truck,” Mary Jane said, rubbing at her temple with a perfectly manicured hand.

“He still hasn’t seen his new suit!” Peter said, before chugging down coffee like it was going out of style. Kaine’s eyes narrowed.

“Better still be black and red. None of that fucking blue.” He pointed his fork at Peter threateningly. 

“Not the suit!” Mary Jane said, voice going from still waking up to a tone Kaine and Peter were distressingly familiar with.

“The secret lab and then the secret secret- Oh,” Peter said, once again back on track. Kaine snapped his mouth shut, through Peter's memories he was quite familiar with that tone. If he was silent maybe all of MJ’s ire would fall on Peter. He took a huge bite of food and averted his eyes.

“Yes, oh. What was that bit, Tiger?” 

“Kaine’s staying here? And uh, he’s agreed to help me, you know, with the spidery things,” Peter said wiggling his fingers at ‘spidery’, and doing his best to project confused innocence. Kaine doubted MJ bought it.

“He started angsting,” Kaine said helpfully, through his mouthful of delicious food. 

“I was not angsting! I do not! MJ, I do not angst ! Teenagers angst! I was in emotional distress. I was having very adult emotions , okay!” Peter huffed, stealing a burrito from Kaine and eating it just for spite. Kaine snorted. 

“He broke the table. He practically challenged me to a fight. He was angsting ,” he reassured her. He frowned and snatched a breakfast burrito off of Peter’s plate in retaliation. Peter made completely betrayed noises of disbelief.

“When did I challenge you to a fight? I think I’d remember challenging my own brother to a fight ,” Peter said waving around a fork full of eggs.

"Your fuh-reaking out about, ugh, when you broke the end table until you laughed! Your body language was practically screaming fight me!" Kaine said, forcing himself to at least not be quite so vulgar in front of MJ.

“So you did break the end table,” Mary Jane said pointedly. Peter smiled around his mouthful of eggs, then swallowed.

“Kinda?” he said. Peter thwipped the last of the breakfast burritos to him from the now much less full breakfast smorgasbord. Kaine rolled his eyes at Peter. 

“How the fuck do you kind of break something?” he growled, then shook his head. This was ridiculous. Peter was ridiculous. Kaine couldn’t help but add. “I know when someone’s tryin’ to start a fight,” 

“I wasn’t trying to fight you !” Peter protested, then turned pleadingly to Mary Jane, “I wasn’t! I wasn’t gonna start a fight with Kaine! Not after you said don’t break the apartment! It was just one end table, and Anna Marie already ordered a replacement! It’ll be here today!”

Mary Jane sighed. Enough was enough.

“I have a photoshoot to get ready for. Peter take Kaine with you to your board meeting. It should do him good,” she said, standing up and striding back to the bedroom. “And try to remember to tell me about guests staying over, and life changing spider lessons before hand, please Tiger.”

“Hold on. I didn’t sign up for this shit!” Kaine said, immediately forgetting about his attempt at polite language around Mary Jane. Kaine looked at Peter with wide eyes, his jaw set firmly. “I’m not going to some fancy fucking meeting with you.” 

Mary Jane strode back out with Peter’s jacket, she handed it to him with a kiss to his cheek. Then leaned over to kiss Kaine’s cheek as well. It was chaste and friendly. Kaine hated it and all the stupid happiness it brought him. He didn’t need his sister-in-law to accept him. Or his brother for that matter. 

“I’m glad you’re staying, Kaine. Thank you. Now go get ‘em boys,” she said as she sauntered back to the bedroom.

“I’m not going with you,” Kaine told Peter again, firmly. 

“Sure you’re not,” Peter agreed. Then perked up, “But Spider-Man is!”

Peter pretended to straighten his tie, “He’s my bodyguard, you know.”

“Not a fucking chance.” Kaine pushed the food away, no longer hungry. Peter gasped in delight, finally noticing Kaine’s boots as he stepped away from the table. Regret washed over Kaine instantly. He shouldn’t have worn the fucking cowboy boots, no matter how they reminded him of Aracely. He shouldn’t encourage Peter. 

“You’re wearing the boots! Oh! Oh, this is perfect! Just stop by to get your hat, oh and the belt buckle, did you see the belt buckle?” Peter got up, shrugging into his fancy tailored suit jacket and following Kaine to the elevator.

“Fuck you,” Kaine said, and let him catch up. 

“It’s all custom made! The boots are ostrich leather and snakeskin, they tell me it’s fancy stuff. Oh, oh! You did see the hats, right? I couldn’t decide between a spider or a Texas star, so I got you both! And then I couldn’t decide between white, or black or red, so I got all of those too! And then you have a whole collection of belt buckles, but the best one is obviously the spider one. Obviously,” Peter said as they walked to the elevator.

“Computer, elevator to Scarlet Suite,” Peter said cheerfully. The elevator started up.

“Computer, don’t fucking take me there,” Kaine growled. The elevator stopped. He glared at Peter. “I’m not a barbie doll. We aren’t playing dress up.” 

“Computer. Scarlet Suite.” Peter commanded absently, the elevator resumed its motion, “Of course you aren’t a barbie doll. But I know you hate fancy suits at least a much as me. And wearing your ‘suit’ under your suit is even less fun. But don't worry your new suit can hide in plain sight!" Peter flashed his way too expensive watch at him with a sly grin. Then went on at Kaine's glower "You can be my Texan bro and do the whole cowboy thing and these people will eat it up!”

The line on Kaine’s forehead deepened as he frowned. “I don’t do the… cowboy thing. And I’m not going to your meeting.” 

The elevator door dinged open and he stepped out. He made a quick walk to the doors of his suite and went inside; for some God forsaken reason already moving towards his dresser. 

“Of course! You're not from Texas! You’re from Queens! And, duh, you’re not going to the meeting, that’s ridiculous,” Peter agreed with a nod. He pulled open the drawer of belts and grabbed a snakeskin belt that matched Kaine’s boots.

“You bet your ass I’m not,” Kaine agreed, glaring suspiciously at Peter. “No not that one,” he added, slapping Peter’s hand away from one of the gaudy, rhinestone encrusted cowboy hats. Or maybe they were actually diamonds. He wouldn't put it past Peter, “Something darker.” 

Kaine considered the belt buckles for a moment, hesitating before grabbing the spider one. He’d never admit it but Peter was right. It was the best one. The others were all Texas themed with bulls or stars and other terrible cowboy shit. Though he guessed the monogrammed K buckle was acceptable. But the spider wasn't gold, or silver, or whatever. It was a muted black, still shiny as hell but not nearly as flashy as everything else.

“Right, of course,” Peter agreed, going for the plain black hat that matched his belt buckle instead of the white one. Peter looked him over thoughtfully, tapping his finger against his mouth. Kaine refrained from hitting him. Peter mumbled, "something's missing..."

"Nothing 's missing, I have the damn hat and the belt buckle, let's get this over with," Kaine said with a growl.

"No, no, the ink. We need to cover it up, come on," Peter said, making his way to the closet.

"You're shitting me. Who gives a fuck about my fucking tattoo? I'll sting them, I'm not even fucking around," Kaine snarled.

"No, bad evil clone, no hurting employees. And here, look I even got you the most boring cowboy shirts I could find," Peter said, offering Kaine two different long sleeved shirts.

They were, Kaine could admit to himself, not entirely terrible. One was black with embroidered flowers and bull skulls across the shoulders, the other red with intricate black embroidery over the shoulders. He really shouldn't, but he grabbed the one that looked a bit like his super suit anyways.

"Fine," Kaine grumbled, pulling on the damn shirt and having to tuck the stupid thing into his pants. Ugh.

"And a tie to complete the look!" Peter said, pulling open a drawer filled with fucking bolo ties.

"Eat a dick." Kaine offered. Like hell he was putting on one of those things.

“No thanks,” Peter said breezily. “Not hungry. Just put on the tie, bro. It’ll be easier than fighting with me.”

Kaine hated to agree, but as much as he’d rather fight than give in, his brother would be less annoying if he just put on the damn tie.

Decked out like a cowboy Kaine grumbled at Peter. “You fucking happy now?” 

Peter smiled brightly, “Fucking delighted.”

He let Kaine lead the way back to the elevators.

“Computer my eight thirty please,” Peter said, stepping into the lift.

The doors whooshed closed and the lift moved. Peter pulled out his phone and checked it. He showed his notes on the meeting topics to Kaine, letting him take the phone to get a better look. A grunt let Peter know when Kaine had finished reading. It was as good of an agreement or sign of understanding as he would get. The elevator stopped much, much lower in the building and opened. Peter led Kaine out, meeting up with ‘Spider-Man’. Of course Peter hadn't told him who this really was. And of course Kaine couldn't just ask.

“Spidey, you remember my brother, Kaine! He just got in from Houston last night!” Peter said, trying to let his head of security know what was going on without giving away anything suspicious on these unsecured floors.

"You should have gone over this last night, idiot," Kaine told Peter. Peter waved him off.

“Yo!” ‘Spider-Man’ greeted with a wave. "I'm used to it by now."

“Spider-Man. You're a lot less scrawny than I remember. You been working out?” Kaine smirked sideways at Peter. 

"Hah. Hah. You're a riot," Peter glowered at Kaine, then straightened his tie and brushed down his suit. 

“Alright, game face!” Peter said, before pushing open the doors to the board room.

He was all smiles and platitudes as Kaine assessed the board members for Parker Industries. He didn't even know why he was surprised when at least half of them looked like one radiation accident away from supervillainy. They all cast glances between him and fake Spider-Man, like they were trying to figure out why Peter had brought thugs into their meeting. Or maybe trying to figure out if they could take them and assassinate Pete. Kaine knew the feeling. But if anyone was going to kill his idiot brother it’d be him dammit. So he glared at each businessperson in turn, just daring them to try something. They were unfortunately only feigning respect. Damn. Peter wasn't going to get killed out being a damn stupid hero with scorpions like this in his den. Well. Looks like he'd wound up back in New York just in time to rescue his idiot brother from himself.

"Gentle People, please let me introduce my brother, Mister Kaine Parker. He's been on an extended stay in Texas, but as you all can see he's back!"

Kaine tipped his hat in a vague approximation of a greeting. This was just going to be a God damn delight.

***

“That was the worst thing that I've ever had to sit through,” Kaine told Peter as soon as the meeting was over. The boardroom hadn't even fully emptied out yet, but Kaine was so bored that he figured Peter was lucky he hadn't gone stabby halfway through. It had been a near thing for a while there. Kaine hadn't been wrong about how ruthless these assholes were either. He was mildly amazed that Peter was still the CEO. Kaine informed him, “And I was eaten alive by werewolves once.”

“Ahaha what a kidder," Peter said with a fake laugh, smiling at the people still making their way out. He leaned over to Kaine. Speaking quietly he added, “Oh, just wait, the shareholder meetings are even worse."

Kaine shuddered. "I'd rather get eaten alive again, ugh."

But to be fair to Peter he wasn't actually terrible at acting nice. It was just unfairly obvious to Kaine when Peter was fronting. A few of these aggravating shits even laughed along with him. Kaine trusted them about as long as it'd take to kill them. Which actually didn't make that much sense as a metaphor but he knew he could throw these idiots pretty damn far. 

“But enough of that. Let me give you the grand tour!” Peter said standing up and walking to the door. ‘Spider-Man’ followed them.

“We’ll start with the RnD labs and move on to my own private lab, then my garage! And then maybe hotdogs! And then-”

“Uh, Mr. Parker, I hate to spoil your day but you do have some scheduled events this afternoon that can’t be rescheduled,” Peter’s flunky reminded him.

“We aren't skipping the hotdogs,” Kaine put in menacingly. Fake Spider-Man wasn't going to ruin the one thing Kaine actually liked about being in this shitty fucking city for him. Especially over terminally boring business shit.

“Just don’t miss your meetings, again , Mr. Parker. Especially for questionably sanitary street meat,” ‘Spider-Man’ said, apparently unaffected by Kaine’s threat. This was not the usual way of things. Kaine didn't like it. The flunky went on, “They really can’t be rescheduled.”

“Yeah, yeah, I hear you. I’ll be there,” Peter said, waving his hand dismissively. The elevator doors opened.

“I better get to see this garage before more of your lame CEO shit,” Kaine demanded as he followed Peter on.

“Fine, fine. Computer, Spider Garage.” Peter declared.

“Spider Garage? Really?” Kaine was unimpressed. 

“Spider Garage. Really,” Peter said, equally unimpressed at Kaine’s snark. The doors opened and they stepped out into heaven. 

“Holy fuck,” he breathed, instantly regretting it. Now that Pete knew he was impressed he was never ever going to shut up. But still. Heaven. That was, this would be heaven if an automotive angel hadn't vomited garishly bright red and blue glitter paint all over everything. It legitimately hurt Kaine’s eyes just to look at. Not to mention his soul.

“Were you trying to make them all blinding? I think Daredevil could have picked out a better paint job!” Kaine said in complaint.

“Hey! That is real diamond coating! They’re all explosion and bullet proof!” Peter defended. 

“Uh, I’ll just get back to making sure PI keeps standing then?” Fake Spider-Man said, heading back into the elevator. Kaine couldn't give less of a shit. Peter waved his acknowledgement. Kaine ignored him. 

“Well, mostly explosion proof. Like, small explosion proof,” Peter conceded.

“Though the Spider Car has carbon fiber armor and it really is big explosion resistant,” Peter said, leading Kaine to his current pride and joy. It was, like everything else in here, a sparkling blue and red eye sore. But an eyesore with a sleek, sexy design. Peter popped the hood and Kaine was delighted at the very unique setup.

“No way, is that Reed’s old gravity inducer?” Kaine blurted. Oh fuck, stupid fucking car. Stupid fucking memories. Peter beamed at him.

“It’s my own design, but there wasn’t much about Reed’s that needed improvement, really. And it’s powered by a-”

“A micro fission reactor. Fuck. You tell your government pals you got this?” Kaine laughed. Peter blanched.

“No way! You think the word radioactive at them and they have a damn conniption fit! This is definitely off the books!”

“Mmm hmm, so that’s why you went to the trouble to mock up a petrochem engine,” Kaine side eyed him with what was not a proud brotherly smirk. No way. Never. “You fuckin’ sneaky shit.”

Peter rubbed the back of his neck, grinning sheepishly.

“Heh, yeah, well. I’ve picked up a few things since…” Peter looked away. Kaine looked away too. Since they'd last met, to Peter's memories? Since Ock had stolen his life and he'd finally gotten everything back but wrong and twisted? Kaine held in his spikes, that wouldn't help either of them.

“Anyways! You know what I don’t have?” Peter said, as if the heaviness of a moment ago hadn't happened.

“An off button?” Kaine asked dryly. Perfectly happy to ignore that shit so fucking hard he'd already forgotten it. Or at least was trying to.

“A Spider Truck!” Peter didn’t deign to reply directly, rolling his eyes instead. He closed the hood of the Spider Car and strode over to the work area. He pulled up his interactive holo screens and loosened his tie.

Kaine grunted acknowledgement and looked over the interface. It wasn't one he'd seen before but it looked intuitive. Especially when you were basically the same guy as the guy that made it.

“So you wanna build it from the ground up? Or you want we should get a truck base and rework it?” Peter asked opening multiple programs. He moved his 3D modeling software to its own screen, and pulled up all the different model trucks PI could purchase in another app.

“We'd end up scrapping most of it anyways. Might as well work from the ground up,” Kaine said, unbuttoning his annoying cowboy shirt and tossing the ridiculous hat to the side. 

“Mmm, true, true,” Peter agreed, closing out the app with the prebuilt pickup trucks. Kaine flung the shirt and tie after the hat.

“It’ll need to still fit in a parking spot I suppose, though, heh,” he shared a grin with Kaine, “I can whip up another gravity inducer easy peasy.”

“Nice. I’ll need two paint modes though. I don’t have all this fuckin fancy shit,” Kaine said with a wave that included the garage, the cars, and the entire building. “And I don’t want it, either!”

“Right, right. We’ll have Spider Mode and Camo Mode,” Peter nodded. What a relief.

“And none of this blue shit,” Kaine demanded, “It’s a fuckin’ eyesore!”

"Blue is amazing, you're just tasteless," Peter said.

"Hmph," Kaine responded. He was too busy messing around with the controls of the holo screens and learning the three dee modeling software. Besides, he couldn't stand the way existing with Peter brought out his own urges to quip and make dumbass word play jokes.

"Right, well, you look like you've got it handled. I'll be back for lunch," Peter said. 

“You better fucking come back for lunch, you asshole,” Kaine said as his parting words. 

***

“Kaine Parker, family dinner will begin in ten minutes. Your presence is requested.” 

Kaine couldn't say how long he had been working when the computer scared the ever living shit out of him. He smacked his head against the truck frame when he jumped.

“Fucking computer. Don't know why he needs half of this fancy shit,” he grumbled, rubbing the spot where he'd bashed his head. There was blood but the cut had already stopped bleeding. It'd be totally healed before dinner. Which he was going to, he guessed. Unsurprisingly Peter had forgotten about lunch. The ass. With a sigh he wiped his hands on a rag and washed up before heading to the elevator. 

“They better not be dressed up in a fucking evening gown and suit or something,” he said to himself as he caught sight of his dirty shirt in the reflection of the elevator door. 

“Dinner attire is casual wear,” the computer told him helpfully, making him jump again. He hadn't even asked it anything.

“That's so damn creepy,” Kaine muttered to himself, eying the ceiling suspiciously.

The lighting brightened at his words, as if to dispel any potential creepiness from the previously dimly lit elevator.

“Still creepy,” Kaine snapped.

Cheerful sixties pop music began playing. Mercifully, the elevator arrived at its destination shortly after.

“Hey! How’s the Spider Truck coming?” Peter asked, looking up from the table as Kaine entered.

“Good,” Kaine grunted. He’d put together the frame, and set the three-D printer to fabricating the rest of the components he'd need. And figured out how to order tires. Because of course truck tires weren’t in stock in Peter’s ridiculous garage. And designing tires was more than Kaine wanted to do just now.

“Thank you for joining us, Kaine!” MJ said, smiling and for all appearances genuinely happy. Happy at seeing him? It felt weird. Made him itch. Not that she wasn’t usually happy to see him, these days. Before Peter had not been Peter, they’d both invited him to Parker family events. It still felt strange, like Aunt May wasn’t really his aunt. His memories of her certainly weren’t his. But she accepted him as if he were just as much her idiot nephew as Peter. How was this his life?

“Uh, no problem,” he said, taking the chair he’d sat in that morning. Definitely not blushing as Mary Jane gave him a sweet kiss on the cheek. He tried to squelch the flutter of happiness the chaste kiss drove out of him. He turned to Peter, adding, “Reformulated your gaudy fuckin’ paint into something less tacky.”

“My coating is not tacky!”

“Boys please, Kaine why don’t you tell us how your day went?” Mary Jane said. Oh. Fucking great. She wanted God damn dinner talk to go with shitting dinner? He so was not cut out for this crap. He should have stayed in Houston. 

Dinner was even more disgustingly domestic than breakfast had been. And it felt like twenty times as long. But it wasn't eternal, thank fuck.

“Man, that hit the spot!” Peter said, dropping his napkin on his plate and leaning back to stretch.

“ Brouj hasn’t disappointed yet,” Mary Jane agreed. 

“Too fuckin’ fancy,” Kaine grumbled. Though he also had an empty plate before him. 

Mary Jane picked up her tablet and walked past Peter, running her hand along his shoulders. He smiled up at her and followed her to the sofa. They sat down, Mary Jane leaning into Peter. Peter resting his hand not busy with his phone casually possessive around her waist. Kaine was undeniably, absolutely, incredibly uncomfortable. He felt like a stranger standing in a couple’s house, watching them go about their evening. Every casual intimate gesture made him tense further, each brush of hands and casual moment of contact, each loving look made his skin crawl. He stood by the table, unsure what to do. Mary Jane looked up after a moment and smiled. At him.

“Come sit, Kaine,” she said warmly, patting the open seat next to her. Stiffly, Kaine obeyed. 

Mary Jane pulled her legs up and rested them along Kaine’s lap, snuggling further against Peter as she finished reviewing her agenda. If Kaine was uncomfortable before, that was nothing to how he felt now. Mary Jane being casually affectionate with him was just, just completely and totally intolerable. Him being here in this swank home, on this fine couch, snuggling with MJ and Peter; it was like trying to jam a moldy piece of cardboard someone found in the garbage into a landscape puzzle of a Monét painting. And of course Peter looked snug as a spider in its burrow, happily absorbed with whatever the hell he was doing on his phone. His fingers were gently rubbing at the curve of Mary Jane's waist. Kaine fidgeted uncomfortably.

Peter and Red belonged here. 

He didn't. 

MJ looked over at Kaine’s tablet and phone-less hands and asked, “Did Peter forget to give you your phone?”

“I don't need one,” Kaine replied distractedly as he tried to figure out what to do with his hands. He settled for resting one on the armrest and one awkwardly just below Mary Jane’s knee. “I don't use the Internet or anything.” 

Mary Jane stared at him. Shocked. 

“Can you believe it, MJ? My own brother, a luddite!” Peter complained, swiping away at his phone’s keyboard. Making notes for his next meetings and jotting down ideas for fun new toys. Kaine glowered over at Peter, tempted to flip him off. But he had a feeling that might attract MJ’s ire. And speaking of MJ…

“It's not a big deal,” he protested at the look on her face. He scowled darkly at the phone in Peter's hand. Mary Jane was not consoled. 

“Don’t you use the internet? At all? How do you stay on top of the goings on in Houston? Or anywhere for that matter? The news channels don’t report on anything important, or if they do they never say enough,” Mary Jane said. Peter chuckled at MJ’s reaction, giving her waist a gentle squeeze and absently nuzzling against her hair.

“He probably reads the paper. On paper,” Peter said, amused.

Kaine made a noise of agreement and averted his eyes. 

Peter and MJ were so… domestic . And Kaine had somehow been suckered into being a reluctant part of that domesticity. Tonight was a far cry from his usual evenings of beer and stale leftovers before a night out punching faces in. Kaine stuck out like a sore thumb in this cozy living room scene. But he was the only one that seemed to notice.

“Kaine. Kaine, sweetheart. You do know you can read all of that online, right?” she finally said. “Not to mention we have resources we’re happy to share with you to help with your ‘business’ in Houston.”

“It’s no use MJ. I’ve tried to show him the wonders of modern life. He’s too stubborn and set in his ways,” Peter said faux-sadly. Mary Jane side eyed Peter.

“Wonder where he gets it from,” she teased dryly.

“Why would I waste my time staring at a screen when I could be out hunting down scumbags,” Kaine argued, totally not pouting. He was scowling. In a manly way. 

“Because the screen tells you where to find the scumbags so you don’t have to waste your resources and time tracking them down. Much more efficient,” Peter said, “Especially since you don’t have spider sense any more. Not like you can just wait for it to ping while you’re out on patrol.”

Kaine grunted and shifted uncomfortably. Having the attention of both perfect Parkers directed at him was making him feel itchy. 

“Why don’t we watch a movie,” Mary Jane suggested, trying to head off yet more ‘shop talk’ while she was still up. Not that it wasn’t nice that Peter was getting to spend quality time with his clone-slash-brother. Just, there was only so much super hero talk one normal powered person could take. Kaine shrugged. It'd be less unpleasant than talking that was for sure. MJ reached over to Peter’s phone and pulled it out of his hand. Peter pouted but let her take it. She asked, “You have any favorite movies?” 

“Oh, we can watch _Man Up_ , I bet he’d like that. Or _Aloha_ , or-”

“I don't care as long as it's none of those ones,” Kaine cut in. He had no idea what they were, but Peter had suggested them. Therefore, he disagreed with them on principle.

“Fine, if you don’t have any requests then we’ll watch what I want,” Mary Jane said decisively. 

“Aw, MJ baby, I have requests!” Peter whined.

“Stupid ones,” Kaine muttered not quite under his breath. MJ poked at Kaine’s stomach with her foot, playfully warning him off. Kaine had no idea what to feel about that.

“Tiger, you got to pick last time,” she said, patting Peter’s knee. That seemed to mollify him.

“Computer, play _The Last Unicorn_ ,” Mary Jane said. The lights dimmed and the high definition movie started playing on the really way too big screen across from them.

“Aw man, MJ, not this one,” Peter whined, “It always gives me feelings.”

“The horror, who will save the amazing Spider-Man from his feelings,” she said dryly. Kaine snorted. 

“Amazing might be a bit of a stretch,” Kaine put in. He squinted as the enormous screen lit up, his head already starting to ache. Stupid fucking night vision. He wasn't anywhere as sensitive as O’Hara, but that didn't mean staring at a bright light for a few hours was pleasant. The constant pain was almost nostalgic. Almost. Then the room lighting dimmed to nearly off and the screen brightness changed to something much less stressful. Kaine blinked in surprise. Peter turned his head, ignoring the opening credits to pierce Kaine with his gaze.

“Why didn’t you tell me you had night vision?” he said, hurt and annoyed at the same time.

“Tiger, hush, you can work it out later ,” MJ said, digging her shoulder into him to try and distract him.

Peter sighed and moved his other hand to her shoulder and started rubbing her absently. Though the look he gave Kaine let him know this wasn’t over. Kaine, however, wasn't bothered by Peter's look. He was too lost in the novel experience of watching a movie without the annoying thrum of pain in the background. And the unpleasant memories constant pain forced to the forefront of his mind.

MJ sighed as Peter rubbed the tension from her shoulders. She shifted to get comfortable, and Kaine blinked down at the foot still in his lap, quelling his instinctive urge to push it off. He actually liked having MJ touch him casually like this. As terrible as he was, it felt good being trusted, like they were a normal… Kaine shied away from that entire line of thought. He didn't deserve any of this. But, he didn't want to hurt Mary Jane's feelings by shoving her away. As the movie went on Kaine found that he was actually enjoying himself. Mary Jane was making cute happy sounds and even Peter's occasional comment didn't seem so annoying in the moment. By the time the movie was over there wasn’t a dry eye on the couch. Mary Jane wiped at her eyes and sighed.

“I love this movie,” she said. Peter sniffled loudly and wiped at his face with the back of his sleeve.

“The poor unicorn! She was in love but she can’t love because she’s a unicorn!” Peter bawled.

“Shut up,” Kaine sniffled a little bit wetly, trying to be discrete as he turned away and wiped his eyes. Peter was too busy crying to snark back.

“It’s so tragic,” Mary Jane agreed, patting Peter and Kaine soothingly. Peter cuddled against her, breathing in her scent and wrangling his emotions back under control. Kaine, on the other hand, took a deep breath and thought about trucks. It seemed to help. Mary Jane gave Kaine’s knee a gentle squeeze.

“That wasn’t awful,” he said, suddenly feeling too warm on the small couch. He had forgotten for a while where he was. Who he was with. He’d forgotten that this wasn’t a normal thing he did. It felt a little like living in Peter’s memories, only this time he couldn’t shake it off. No matter how much mental adjustment he did he was still here, snuggled up on the couch with MJ and Peter, watching a movie. 

It was unsettling.

Discombobulating. 

Mary Jane smiled warmly up at him. And Peter glanced over at him with happy surprise. Kaine frowned and cast his eyes away from the smiling couple. He wasn’t sure what to do with his hands again. He wasn’t sure what to say. The silence stretched on. 

“Heh,” Peter said after a moment. “Bet you’d have liked _Aloha_ too. And _Man Up_.” Peter was grinning in the most annoying way, but the incredibly subtle happy wiggle of his hips made Kaine want to wiggle back. Stupid fucking spider shit.

“Definitely not,” he grunted. He wanted to run now, but he was pinned to the couch. He couldn't get up without throwing off Mary Jane. He hated this. Hated how content he was, hated how happy his being civil made his Perfect Parker Family. And most of all he hated how easily he'd fallen into this domestic garbage. None of this was waiting for him in Houston. Not even Aracely was there right now. Training with Justice and Speedball on the ridiculous Mt. Wundagore base they'd taken from that eugenics loving super villain and made their own. 

One thing he knew for sure, though, he should have stayed in Houston.


	4. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (actual new content! ty for your patience)
> 
> Kaine wonders why he even bothers trying to help his idiot brother. Then dinner is interrupted by an unexpected guest.

Kaine managed to avoid his brother's totally unwanted speech, or rant, or whatever the fuck he wanted to call it this time about being in a snit over Kaine never telling him of his night vision. Yep. He avoided him for about six hours. Because of course his idiot clone-brother couldn't sleep eight uninterrupted hours a night even with his gorgeous, stupendous and mildly terrifying wife in his bed. Rude fucker that he was, he started his word vomit as soon as the elevator doors opened to the garage.

It, predictably, used 'responsibility' way too much, on top of being earnest, and heartfelt. And tactically planned for when Kaine was elbows deep in building his new truck. It was also unhappily more effective at getting Kaine to accept his own phone than he had wanted it to be. 

Computer had returned his old suit to him, with 'upgrades' that morning. Peter gave him his newest super suit the next day. Thankfully, he didn't drag Kaine down into his lab for this. Just handed him a bracelet and showed him how to activate it. The bracelet even looked like something he would have made or bought for himself. Simple, sturdy, and more of that gleaming dark metal like in his spider belt buckle. He kept his old suit on him anyways, though now with the thought in his head he managed to think it into a matching bracelet. Or a necklace, if the mood struck.

By his third night at the Parker residence, Kaine was starting to wonder why the hell he was even there.

Peter was so busy with, well, literally **everything** that he hadn’t had even **one** ‘Spider-Lesson’ or whatever the hell Peter was calling them.

If he wasn’t in a meeting, he was saving the worthless city from certain doom, or fetching a little old lady’s cat out of a tree. Or going out with his wife. Or working on the Spider-Truck. Or just running away with vague shouts of 'yeah, yes, I just have to do this one thing first.' and other shit like that. Kaine was beginning to suspect he was being avoided. 

Fuck 'beginning to suspect' he damn well knew Peter didn't want anything to do with his more spidery bits and was putting it off. He probably hoped Kaine would get mad and leave. Well, his brother thought wrong. But he still needed Peter to stop avoiding him. For all that he had zero qualms taking his new truck and leaving as soon as it was done, he at least owed Mary Jane an honest effort.

So, he did what any grown ass adult would do in his situation.

He tattled on him to his wife.

“Peter’s been avoiding me,” he said at the first dinner they’d had together since he’d temporarily moved in. Breakfast was a constant, but he was starting to think that lunch and dinner at home were a rare occasion.

MJ’s sharp eyes were on Peter in a second, and Kaine barely managed to hold back his laugh at how much Peter looked like a guilty child as he froze mid-chew and stared at her with wide eyes. 

“Tiger?” MJ sounded preemptively disappointed. Kaine was delighted.

Peter seemed to unfreeze at her voice, his chewing going from non-existence to hyper speed as he rushed to explain.

“Mmmph- swear mm not, MJ, forreal,” he said, before swallowing his mouthful. “I’ve just been busy! I had all those meetings, and then we went to that premiere thing, and our date, and we’ve been working on the truck too,” he pointed his fork accusingly at Kaine. 

"Don't blame me! Everytime I so much as try to bring it up, you scram," Kaine accused.

"When have I done that? I don't scram. Who even says scram? That's like, that's something some bootlegging mobster says 'its the coppers boys time to scram' or maybe—" 

Kaine growled, aggravated, but then barked a sharp laugh, "You're doing it now, idiot."

"It's true Tiger, you really are. I'll have computer add it to your schedule," Mary Jane said.

Computer chimed a confirmation. Creepily going ahead and apparently doing exactly that without any express command. Kaine hated it.

Dinner was again way too fancy, just like last time. And again, like last time, the conversation was way too easy and friendly and inclusive. Kaine was itching for something to disrupt the perfect family dinner.

And then he got it.

“Mr. Parker,” the voice of Peter’s head of security interrupted them halfway through dinner. 

The atmosphere shifted to tense, just like that. Even MJ had a look of determination on her face. It made Kaine ridiculously proud, which he ignored in favour of focusing on readying himself for a fight.

“I apologize for interrupting dinner, but there is a matter in the lobby that may require your bodyguard.”

“What’s up?” Peter said, already standing to strip out of his clothes, even his fancy new suits had to form underneath what he was wearing.

“There’s a green girl down here demanding entrance. She uh, she seemed upset when we turned her away. She’s sort of, floating and her eyes are glowing. Everyone who tries to apprehend her runs from her screaming, Sir.”

Peter nodded, already putting on his game face. Kaine, on the other hand, sighed loudly and practically deflated.

“Let her in,” he said gruffly. This wasn’t going to end well for him. And he hated how happy he still felt that she had come to find him, underneath the annoyance that she was here.

Peter’s head whipped towards him, his expression questioning.

“She’s my… I know her,” he said. They didn’t need more information than that. At least not before Aracely came up and started spilling his secrets all over the dinner table.

This  **really** wasn’t going to end well. At all.

“Yeah,” Peter said, still sounding a little concerned. “Yeah, send her up. It’s fine. And um, give all the guards she sent screaming the night off.” 

“As you wish, Sir.” 

Kaine decidedly ignored how quick Peter was to let her into his fancy fortress, with just a gruff word or two of reassurance. His brother’s lack of caution and common sense wasn’t his fucking problem.

Aracely, on the other hand,  _ was  _ his problem.

“Kaine,” MJ said, looking at him with an unreadable, almost excited expression. “Is this girl… someone you’re seeing?”

Kaine wasn’t sure what expression he made, but MJ nodded before he could find words to accurately express exactly how fucking ridiculous and horrifying the very thought of that was. 

“Okay, so not a relationship then,” she laughed, gesturing at Peter to sit back down. He seemed reluctant, glancing towards his discarded clothing.

“Fuck no. She’s like twelve. And a brat,” he grunted. “I just take care of her sometimes. She’s like a stray.” Then he turned his attention to Peter. “Sit down. She knows who I am and we have matching faces. And she’d know who you were anyways.”

Before he could get any further, the elevator opened and Aracely Penalba flew out in a green and black blur of over cheerful teenager. At least she was suited up while being a public menace, Kaine reflected. 

"Kaine! Kaine, I found you! Wow, this place is so  **loud** way louder than Houston. I mean, duh, but Mount Wundagore stays parked out in the bay. This place is like, right by central park," Aracely said by way of greeting. She didn't hug him, but she stopped upside down in front of him.

"Good. Stay there next time," Kaine said, gruff.

Aracely smiled even brighter, held her hands together under her chin and declared, "I missed you too, Kaine!"

Kaine grunted. That was not even a noteworthy mental privacy invasion from the wildly powerful telepath. She was getting better about it anyways.

Mary Jane cleared her throat politely. Ugh, right introductions.

Aracely floated over to her, stretching out in the air to 'lay' between Kaine and MJ. She still held her hands under her chin. She looked like every stupid highschool movie girl at a sleepover getting ready to gossip. Kaine sighed and waved his hand at the disaster that was his niece.

"This is Aracely. She probably knows everything about your lives already because she's a rude, nosy little brat that doesn't listen," Kaine said, still doing his best to sound gruff.

"I am way less rude than you, mister! Anyways, hi! Your house is so big! And wow, you’re so beautiful, oh my gosh. I’m so glad you guys are taking care of him. He’s really bad at doing it himself,” she said, all smiles and bright eyed wonder.

"Hello there, Aracely, it's nice to meet you," MJ said. Ever the gracious host and total lady, even when dealing with floating kids. Because of course Missus Perfect Parker couldn't be anything else.

“You don't mean that and you know it Mister grumpy guts," Aracely told him, Kaine thought his annoyance even louder. She ignored him in favor of more chit chat, "I’m his niece, by the way. At least, that’s what he calls me. He didn’t tell you that, but he was going to! Eventually! Though, I mean, technically he’s my Champion because he found me and saved me,” Aracely informed them happily, spinning so that she was floating upright. 

Kaine cringed at that. He didn’t deserve to be her Champion. Hell, he was still half convinced he wasn’t.

“You are though,” she said to him, smiling in that warm and trusting way that no longer really bothered him. “And you do.”

“I thought we talked about  **privacy** ,” he grumbled, fighting a losing battle against a smile. Aracely spun lazily. 

“Yup! But you’re so loud!” She turned to Peter. “You are too. You’re his brother, so I guess that makes sense! Hey! That means I’m your niece too!” She did an excited spin in mid air and then gasped and spun again to face MJ “Oh my gosh! I’m a  **model, actress, journalist's niece** _!” _

The last bit was said so high pitched that Kaine nearly covered his ears. By the twitch of his hands, it looked like Peter felt the same way.

"That is so awesome! Oh, jeeze that's great!" She flew up and continued on like this while doing loop de loops. It wouldn't distract her for long but it was a distraction. He poked at the way too fancy food on his plate. When was the last time Aracely had eaten anything? Like real food, not junk food. She at least had plenty of people watching out for her these days. But before he could follow those thoughts, Peter and Mary Jane leaned in to talk quietly with him. As if it mattered when the person you were trying to hide shit from was a telepath.

"Niece? Is she…" Peter asked, looking far too hopeful. Kaine tried to squash the pain that thinking of their dead brother stabbed through him. Ben had been the best of them. A  **real** clone; perfect in every way. Nothing fucked up or monsterous about  **him** .

"Adopted," Kaine grunted, then decided to hell with it, "found her mostly dead in a shipping container the coyotes left out in the sun too long."

"Oh my God," Mary Jane said eyes wide and hands covering her mouth in muted horror. 

Peter’s expression took on that undeniably angry-concerned and ready to deal out justice quality he was so good at. Too bad Kaine had already beat him to it. And in a far less pg 13 manner than his brother ever would.

“It’s been dealt with,” he said gruffly to Peter, trying hard to ignore the twist of guilt he felt at making Mary Jane upset.

He just hoped she wasn’t going to cry or some shit.

Instead, she gave Kaine a steady, indiscernible look, then turned her gaze to Aracely. “Aracely, honey,” she called up to the floating teen. “Why don’t you come down and join us for dinner. Do you like steak?”

She flew down grinning from ear to ear. “Oh! Can I have New York strip steak? Because you know, we’re in New York?!” She bounced twice in her seat, then suddenly she was plain old Aracely, the Hummingbird costume fading away. “And anyways, don’t worry about me!” She said kindly to MJ, who was blinking in confusion at her sudden transformation. “I already told you, I have Kaine as my Champion. He saved me and he fights for me. He takes care of me.”

She said this with such pride and love that she almost glowed with it, and both of the stupid, perfect Parker’s expressions softened, looking between Aracely and himself.

His cheeks felt hot, and his chest felt full, and he swore if she didn’t shut the fuck up he was going to snap the fancy dining table in half. Then she laughed, too loud and bright. 

“No you won’t. You think it’s a nice table,” she giggled, then continued, softer, “You like it here.”

“No, I don’t, you nosey brat. Shut the fuck up and eat already. You look like a strong gust of wind might snap you in half. Have those idiots even been feeding you?” 

“You owe the swear jar!” Aracely screeched. 

Peter gave him a  **look** _. _

“I didn’t realize there was a  **swear jar** ,” Peter said, delighted. “Your uncle’s gonna go broke. You want me to have our AI keep track of how much he owes? We could get her to bring up a holographic jar! Ohhh or a chart!”

“Yes! But let’s do it like the one in Lilo and Stitch but instead of ‘bad’ it says ‘swears’!” Aracely gasped, delighted.

“Yes! And the drawing can be him with little wrist spikes out!” Peter said, looking way too happy to be allowed.

"They're stingers," Kaine grumbled halfheartedly. The two biggest idiots in his life bounced ideas of how to torture him off of each other. MJ wasn’t helping either. She was, in fact, encouraging them.

He thought back, to Mary Jane with her belly large. He thought about how **right** these two were with a kid. How fucking unfair it was that they didn’t get that. And of course Aracely got along with them like a hospital on fire. If only Peter had found her. Saved her that day. Peter probably would have been like a father to her. Not a surly, fucked up, deadbeat uncle like him. Kaine startled as arms wrapped themselves around him in a frighteningly tight hug. 

“You’re being stupid,” Aracely said, resting her head on his shoulder. “You do that too much. Shut the heck up and eat,” she mirrored his earlier words back at him, pulling back to smile at him like he was her favourite person on earth.

“You are,” she said, like it was a no-brainer. “Well, you and Speedball. But he’s dreamy, and you’re family.” She stuck out her tongue at the mere thought of Kaine being considered dreamy.

“So, correct me if I’m wrong here,” Peter cut in, though Kaine wasn't prepared to thank his brother for the distraction just yet. Peter went on. “but if I had to venture a guess, I’d say Miss Aracely here is a telepath?”

"Something like that, yes!" Aracely said. Then set to eating, leaving Kaine to actually talk of course. Despite her teasing him to eat she'd stolen his plate. Typical.

"Anything about her powers stays between us. " Kaine told Peter instead of answering. 

"Yeah, absolutely," Peter said with an earnest nod.

"Of course Kaine," MJ agreed. He wasn't worried about **her** getting chatty with someone she shouldn't, though.

"I'm fuhrrrreaking serious!" he didn't need more distractions now. Even if changing fuck to freak made him sound like a tool. "You're too trusting! No one else can know this! Especially not the other spiders! Or Storm! Or—"

"Yeah, no, I get it. Seriously," Peter told him. It was as good as he'd get. Hopefully Peter didn't forget.

Mary Jane looked solemn next to him.

"Yeah, it's obvious she's a telepath. She's not a mutant, not that those cloistered di… ugh, dill weeds will train her if she were. The short version is we upset them and they told us to get out."

"I really didn't mean to, but they tried to telepath **me** and, well, that was just dumb of them, really, but honest I didn't upset the X-Men on purpose!" Aracely interrupted. Just remembering all of that shit show set Kaine's teeth on edge. Neither perfect Parker needed to know about the long of it. He doubted the X-Men would have rejected her without Kaine there to ruin everything.

"It wasn't your fault, Aracely. It was mine, I shouldn’t have brought you with me then, should've let you go there without me ruining your reputation with the X-Men,” Kaine said. It had felt like the only option at the time. But surely he could have found another way that didn't taint her with his— 

"Stop that. You're my Champion. You belong by my side. They were just jerks," Aracely said, way too sure. Just like a kid.

"I'm sure it was a very upsetting thing to have happened. But you're safe here," Mary Jane said. Kaine felt an embarrassing rush of affection for her. And for his idiot brother nodding and uttering reassurance along with her.

"Oh, I know! You two don't need to worry any about me though!" Aracely beamed at Kaine with such trust that his chest felt too full again.

"She's my responsibility. But… thanks," Kaine said, even managing an attempt to convey how deeply he appreciated knowing Peter and MJ had his back, and now Aracely's.

"Of course," Mary Jane agreed. As if anything else was unthinkable.

"You guys are  **family** ," Peter reminded him. Fuck. Kaine was not cut out for this. He took a steadying breath and tried not to let his mixed up, overwhelming feelings on family get in the way of this.

"It's more than that, though. Her powers. She’s got flight and telepathy, yeah, but, also, she can inspire emotions in people, fear is the easiest,” Kaine said, though he thought at Aracely deliberately then.

“Yup! Everyone’s got fears! Even babies! And I guess animals have fears too, but I can only sense and feel people’s minds. No animals, though actually maybe I can feel parrots? They're really smart! Hang on **_LET ME CHECK_**. Wow, haha yeah I can! Did you know there’s like a **ton** of parrots in New York City? Gosh, I wonder if the Amazon would be just as loud as New York? Kaine! Kaine can we go to Brazil?" Aracely said, doing her best to fit all of that into one breath.

“Fuhrreak no! Shut up and eat!” Kaine told her. She didn't even pretend to listen.

“They have really pretty beaches! And spiders as big as your head! What do they feel like, I wonder? They look so fluffy!" Aracely said, looking way too thoughtful about that.

"For fuck's sake Aracely, don't pet wild spiders you find on the ground. Or wherever the Hell they live! We are not going to Brazil! No!"

"Swear jar!" Aracely sang. The computer chimed and she clapped in delight. "Oh my gosh I can't wait to draw the little angry Kaine! Thank you, Computer!"

"It will be my pleasure to assist you in tracking Kaine's swearing," said the fucking asshole AI. Of course it would make it happy, ugh.

"I can't wait to upload it for you! But actually goliath bird eating spiders, and most of the fuzzy looking ones really, aren't covered in fluff—" said his annoying as fuck brother. Before his niece interrupted him. Good.

"They're covered in detachable, mildly toxic spines, yes! I didn't mean feel with hands!" Aracely laughed. Mercifully, Mary Jane intervened before she could tell Peter about his stupid talking to spiders power.

"Aracely-honey, why don't you finish your dinner right now and we can make vacation plans later, okay?" Mary Jane said. Kaine did not like the sound of that. Not one bit.

"You do too, stop being so cranky," Aracely told him. Then to Mary Jane, "Okay, but I still want a New York Strip Steak please! Oh! And cheesecake!"

"Have they even been feeding you over there?" Kaine asked her. Yes, she had enhanced metabolism, but she shouldn't be  **this** hungry. "Do I need to drop in and give Justice a talk about proper teenage super human nutrition?"

"Oh my gosh," she drew the word out with truly unnecessary exaggeration, "They feed me fine!  **_WITH PALTRY MORTAL FARE, I NEED THE BLOOD OF OUR ENEMIES TO SLAY MINE TRAITOR SIBLINGS OR DARKNESS WILL REIGN FOREVERMORE._ ** Stop being such a worry wart! Sheesh."

"That's, uh, that's a good thing, I think. Blood doesn't have all that much nutritional value to it," Peter said, laughing nervously.

Mary Jane didn't **say** anything, but she didn't need to. She looked so concerned for Aracely that Kaine had to look away from the both of them.

"She has a Aztec god in her head. Or something that thinks it is anyways. The Aztec god of war," Kaine grudgingly told them.

"I thought the Aztecs had many war gods?" Mary Jane asked. Before Kaine could do more than feel annoying and unwanted pride at Mary Jane for asking the right questions, no doubt for his flighty brother's benefit. That unreal voice spoke yet again through Aracely.

" **_I AM HUĪTZILŌPŌCHTLI, BRINGER OF FIRE AND VANQUISHER OF THE DARK; I WIELD XIUHCOATL AS MINE SWORD; THE VICTORY AND DEFEAT OF ALL WARRIORS BELONG TO US_ ** **.** Ugh, sorry. Sorry, I usually don’t do that so often, I swear! Justice has been helping us, which is actually soooo boring, but it’s been helping! I think he’s just excited we’re with our Champion! Huītzilōpōchtl is, not Justice. Although he does say 'hi' by the way! To you and to Peter!”

Kaine grunted wordlessly. He could care less about the damned asshole in her head. But he was glad that she really was doing better. It was clear to him that her time with Vance, Justice, was good for her.

“Um, hi?” Peter said, giving her a little tiny wave. 

Aracely giggled like they’d both told the funniest joke in the world. 

“No, **Justice** says hi! Huītzilōpōchtl says… uh… well it’s not that important,” she said quickly, taking a huge bite of her steak. 

"Oh, okay then,” Peter lowered his waving hand awkwardly. “Tell him hi from Spidey. How’s he been? Haven’t seen him around in a while.”

"Oh he's fine! He likes having a team again! Even though he… oh, private thoughts I think? This is hard! Um, yes! He's doing really good now!"

Kaine couldn't help the smile. She really was getting better about these things. She beamed at him, and he schooled his face back into a frown. But he didn't bother even trying to hide the sense of pride that seeing her learning more control of her own powers gave him.

Then Peter's stupid red and  **blue** spider drone wearing a tacky as all Hell bowtie brought in two plates of freshly prepared steaks. Complete with sides. Aracely dropped her cutlery to clap in delight. Oh  **fuck** _.  _ He'd been ignoring the stupid thing with a will since he'd first seen it.

"Oh my gosh you have a robot butler! Uncle Peter that is the coolest thing ever! Can I have my own robot too? Please please please-"

"No!" Kaine said, horrified. He could just imagine the damned thing causing even more trouble for him than his own regrettable past already did.

"Please please please!" Aracely continued, not even pausing to let him speak.

"Of course!" his asshole brother agreed. Not even thinking about it!

"I said no, Parker!" Kaine snapped at him.

"Don't worry Kaine, I'll make sure Peter keeps it from being an actual menace," Mary Jane said with a teasing quirk of her lips.

"I am wounded, injured, my own wife," Peter bemoaned. As stupid as ever.

Aracely giggled. So happy and bright and everything good in his life that Kaine knew it was a lost cause. If a stupid drone would make her  **this** happy then fine.

"No energy weapons," Kaine declared, shoving a way too big to be polite bite of steak into his mouth and pointing at his obnoxious brother with his fork. Around his mouthful of food he told him, "I'm serious Pete!"

"I would never," Peter lied. Kaine glowered and chewed aggressively at him. Kaine hated the stupid pew pew sound they made. Peter loved it.

“Thank you for the steak by the way Mrs. Parker! It’s sooooo good.”

"Of course dear! You're always welcome at our table!" MJ said, so warm and kind that Kaine felt damn near smothered by it.

"You are just so good! Thank you!" Aracely said with a bright smile and so delighted she was practically chirping.

Of course they were good. Like Peter or Mary Jane could be anything other than good. Not like-

"Fuck! What the hell Celly?" Kaine snapped. She'd kicked him just then. Not that it actually hurt. But it'd been surprising. Stupid useless no spider sense. Not that'd it'd been all that useful for him when he'd had it.

"Swear jar. And you know exactly what the heck Mister! You're good too!" she told him, way too sternly.

“She’s right, you know?” Mary Jane said sincerely.

"I'm," Kaine said, throat too tight, "how can you mean that?"

"She's already forgiven you, dummy," Aracely told him. "And she told you, like one million times. We're all  _ ohana _ now! And, you know,  _ ohana _ means family."

Kaine stood up with too much force and his chair toppled backwards. He needed to get away from all of this overwhelming  **everything** making his throat tight and his chest ache. So, fine, they think he's not a monster any longer? He raged at the stupid fucking chair until it wasn't satisfying any more, then sat down with his back against Aracely's chair, shoulders against the arm of it. She didn't touch him, just kept eating like her crazy Uncle hadn't turned this stupid, expensive piece of furniture into so many splinters it was going to need vacuuming to get them all out.

He ran his thumbs over his knuckles, dislodging some while driving other splinters deeper without any conscious thought. Everyone else was still carrying on like he hadn't just lost all of his shit in the middle of dinner because his own family reminded him that yeah, they sure were family. And in the middle of this, his damned idiot brother just went and picked at the achy raw mess of feelings even further.

“Hey man, I wanted to, well,” Peter sounded unhappy. Good. Kaine refused to look at him. Peter went on. “So, um, when I wasn't me... I know Ock did some pretty shitty things to people who are very important to me when I wasn’t around to stop him."

Goddamn, now Kaine felt like a  **raw** dick. Ugh.

"And even though I wasn’t there I, well… I still have the memories. Brains and souls and whatever. Yeah. So, I’m sorry, and I absolutely don’t agree with anything he said to you. And also, even if you didn’t care about all that stuff he said and just thought ‘hey, my loveable bro is having kinda an off day’ or something, I still want you to know that you’re my brother, and I love you." Peter told him.

The room was swimming before Kaine's eyes and his face was wet. Everything felt too tight and too big and awful and jagged. The Other, that line to the spider-terror-deity-horror that was always open even after Kaine's stupid body died, wasn't doing anything more annoying than muttering half understood unknowable ideas in a not yet created language by a dead universe. It was a better companion right now than his own brain had been for too long a time. Until after he'd died the first time, really.

Kaine glowered at his wrists and hated the warmth and acceptance of his kid and his, no. No, Aracely wasn't his daughter, not even legally. Just his niece. Idiot that he was he'd gone and gotten all attached to her. God, there was so much wrong with him, she deserved so much better than this. Maybe he could get Peter to-

"Hush, you big dummy, I don't want that at all," Aracely said with an actually pretty painful flick to the top of Kaine's head.

"Watch your super strength," Kaine said, voice much, much softer than he wished for it to be. Aracely didn't want to be his perfect brother's daughter. And awful and selfish as it was, it made a better kind of warmth and tightness bloom in his chest than seeing her again had made him feel.

"Oh! But, I could totally crash here now! For a while anyways. Speedball had to do some…. Uh… something," she says, fumbling. It's clear, to Kaine at least, that she knows exactly what is going down but it's not something she's supposed to know. Kaine grunted acknowledgement. Then thought about the absurdly spacious half a floor of a suite of rooms Peter had made for him. There wasn't a guest room in his too many and too fancy rooms but 'Cely could have the bed and he'd be just fine on the couch. It was a better bed then his own shitty bed back in Houston. Hah. 

Peter and MJ of course wouldn't hear of anything else than Aracely staying here with them. It wasn't even a question. Even if she hadn't been her sweet sunny self they would accept her. Not that Kaine could understand their patience and fondness for himself. He most of the time couldn't even accept it. But it was good to know that Aracely had more family now than just himself.

Maybe coming back to New York hadn't been a completely terrible thing.


	5. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scarlet Spider runs into Justice during patrol and Kaine runs into Miguel back at Parker Industries.

The half-wit mugger launched himself at Kaine, like that was somehow a good idea when he had wickedly sharp spikes sticking out of his wrists. 

Only the impact never came. Instead, the mugger paused in mid air, before rocketing backwards against the brick of the alley, hovering halfway up the wall.

“Scarlet! It’s good to see you,” a voice that he associated with spandex and idealism called out. Surprisingly, it wasn’t his brother.

"Justice," Kaine responded. Damn near cordially all things considered. He secured the idiot mugger in his webs and left him hanging from a street light. Good Abraham take his brother for the urge Kaine had to slap a stupid note on the creep.

Kaine swung away and Justice fucking followed him.

"Why are you even here?" Kaine said with a huff.

"I could ask the same of you, Hero," Vance said. He sounded smug and insufferable and Kaine hated everything about him even more than he usually did. He managed to not punch him. It was a near thing.

They took out two more muggers in relatively calm companionship. Kaine grunting or snapping terse, one word responses if needed. Vance was being far too heroic and charismatic and insufferably optimistic, basically the entire time. And even when they were finished, Vance kept talking to him.

"Speedball's been asking after you," Vance said.

"Your partner is a nosey little shit," Kaine snarled. 

"So has the rest of the team," Vance said, completely nonplussed.

"They're all nosey little shits!" Kaine replied. Buncha idiots thinking that Kaine was worth their time. Well, he wasn't! He was a bastard and they didn't need to start feeling any different.

“You aren’t wrong,” Vance conceded. “But we do wonder how you are. It wouldn’t kill you to check in every once in a while.”

Kaine grunted. “You sound like someone’s mother." 

Vance shrugged at that, grinning. “It’s either you call in or we get updates from Aracelly. Her updates tend to be more, uh, intimate than we’d really like.” 

Kaine nearly ran into a wall at that. Of course Aracelly would go blabbing his innermost thoughts and feelings to the whole team. Why wouldn’t she? Fuck.

"Fine. I'll fucking check in. But on my own fucking terms, and I'm not coming to all the stupid fucking team bonding exercises! But I'll swing by."

"Good," Vance told him, smiling so wide that Kaine wanted to punch his face in again. 

Justice followed him for a few more blocks, catching Kaine up on the team he was nominally part of. Kaine even managed to keep from punching Justice the entire time they patrolled together. It had to be a new personal record. Kaine watched him leave, feeling like a creep. Vance was no doubt busy keeping the team together while his aggravating partner ran around doing fuck knew all and neglecting the amazing man keeping the bed warm for him.

Kaine might have broken a few more bones than he'd intended when stopping the next three scumbags. But as they were attempting to gang rape someone he didn't particularly care. He'd managed to get there before penetration occurred, thank fuck. But he waited with the survivor until the police showed up, their clothes were ruined and New York was far more cruel than Houston to half dressed people with stunning tits. Not that Houston was better, but at least they'd have **some** chance of getting help from passerbys back there.

Kaine managed to settle down shortly thereafter and swung back to the former Baxter building. He hated everything about PI and refused to call it that. But Aracelly was staying up with Mary Jane painting their nails. They both attempted to catch him for his own nail polish but he managed to be stinky enough to successfully run away to the shower.

He might have stood in the spray, crying, but no one was around to hear.

"Kaine, I am more than happy to assist you in any way you need."

"Jesus fuck!" Kaine barked at Computer. If he didn't have spider sticking powers he'd have probably fallen on his ass. 

"May I help you, Kaine?"

"No! No, no fucking no! Don't just, fuck!" Kaine turned off the water and stalked over to the towels. Once dry, he tore them apart. It was extremely satisfying. He kicked them away and glowered at his reflection. Kaine commanded, "Don't do something like that again. If I want your help I'll fucking ask you for it."

The computer was silent. It was silent for long enough Kaine decided that it understood his orders and started brushing his teeth.

"I am sorry if I have upset you, Kaine, that was not my intention. I will refrain from speaking to you when you are upset in this manner."

Kaine spat out his toothpaste with force, then gargled and spat that out with force too. He flung his stupid toothbrush at the holder and felt satisfaction when they both broke. He stalked out to his bedroom, ignoring the robe that looked like it would swallow him whole.

"Where the fuck are my pajamas?" Kaine growled. Sleeping nude had been fine when he was alone, but it was completely unacceptable with Aracely staying here right now. Like the coward he was he didn't tell Mary Jane or Aracely goodnight. But he must have fallen asleep relatively quickly because he didn't remember Aracely passing by into the bedroom.

Kaine dreamed of The Other. Of blood and death and his own seemingly cursed immortality. Of being eaten alive again and again and of coming back to himself covered in blood. There were hisses and screams of 'prey' and the blood of his teammates, children nearly all of them. A spider the size of the universe told Kaine "accept yourself as you truly are."

Kaine woke up.

He was on the damned couch and it was absurdly comfortable. He stood up and paced the floor. He already knew he was a monster. Why did the damned spider god keep telling him to accept himself when he already had! Kaine couldn't lash out like he wanted to, Aracely was sleeping in the other room. He stalked around his rooms a while longer before giving up and heading out to the landing between his rooms and… well Ben's rooms. Peter always was an optimist.

When the door to the other suite of rooms opened. Kaine was on the guy leaving before he'd even had the thought. This guy wasn't Ben, and Kaine knew Peter well enough to know that this stupid blue door was for their likely dead clone-brother. The guy wasn't there though, he was a good two meters away. On the ceiling. His stupid sunglasses had fallen off and Kaine could see his red eyes.

"O'Hara," Kaine grunted, not lowering his guard but stopping the attack.

"What the shock?" Miguel yelped, offended. His stupid future slang was literally the worst.

"What the fuck are you doing in these rooms? I know they aren't yours," Kaine snarled. He was pissed for a number of reasons, the violation of his dead brother's space was only one of them.

"What the shock are you doing here?" Miguel asked him instead of answering. Idiot.

"I live here, dumbass," Kaine said, finally retracting his stingers and rolling his eyes. The lighting had dimmed when Miguel had lost his sunglasses. His red eyes were weary and bloodshot. Frankly, he looked like shit run over and left to bake in the Texas sun. Which was putting it kindly.

"You're his clone?" Miguel said, again seemingly ignoring Kaine. Kaine did **not** appreciate the being talked over or the incredulous look. He appreciated the nearly clinical once over even less.

"The fuck is it to you?" Kaine snarled, popping his stingers again. Miguel grinned at him, fangs down and gleaming in the dim light. Kaine's heart raced for a rather different reason than rage. He licked his lips and gave Miguel a more assessing look.

"Mmm, you're..." Kaine supplied his own, uncharitable conclusions. Then stared blankly when Miguel finished with, "an absolute unit."

What the fuck did that even mean? Miguel's hip wiggle and tone of voice meant sex, but 'absolute unit'? Kaine was definitely interested, hell, he hadn't had any since… well, best not to actually think about that. He let his own hips wiggle a hopeful 'mate?' but before anything else could happen Miguel's watch chimed and a cranky sounding lady started berating Miguel.

"Miguel, what is taking so long. Hurry it up!"

"Right, yeah. Sorry Lyla," Miguel said, he retrieved his sunglasses and looked Kaine over with definite lust. Then took the elevator to wherever the hell he was off to in such a damn rush. Kaine stepped in after him. Not like he was getting back to sleep anyways.

Miguel didn't give Computer a verbal command but the elevator began moving all the same. 

"Computer, Garage," Kaine ordered. Computer chimed.

"Garage? Where's a unit like you heading out to this time of night?" O'Hara asked, Kaine refused to look at him. Not that he had any qualms with being treated like shit by a potential lay, it was only what a monster like him deserved after all. But knowing the other spider was a geneticist made Kaine's skin crawl.

"Stop," Kaine snapped. Computer obligingly stopped the elevator. "Not you, you creepy fuck!"

Computer chimed and the elevator resumed motion.

"Stop? You definitely are into me. I saw your sexy little wiggle, don't think I don't know what that means," O'Hara declared, all insufferably smug.

"Yeah. Sure. You're easy on the eyes and I'll suck your dick but I'm not a fucking **unit**! I'm not some piece of shit that popped out of an assembly line just for you to fuck with!"

There was a feminine whistle and mutter from Miguel's… wrist? Kaine glowered. They declared, "wow, what an absolute pleasure you are. He's not insulting you, bit-head, he's calling you attractive."

Kaine flushed. God of course. 

"Clam down, Lyla, man 's got a right to be called what he wants." Miguel said, not even looking at his, well, anywhere else except Kaine. He leered at Kaine and said, "what about beefcake, beefcake? Or maybe tank? You definitely look like you can take it."

The doors opened up to the garage and Kaine ran out, ears burning at Miguel's seemingly genuine attraction and bold flirting. Kaine suggested, "Shut the fuck up, Blue!"

"Make me _Escarlata_ ," Miguel laughed, his reply wasn't even mercifully cut off by the doors closing. 

"Christ fucking Abraham," Kaine groaned. At least his truck was in the bay ready to be worked on. Kaine checked her over and soon lost himself in building her. When Computer announced breakfast Kaine was almost finished. He was excited and nervous and all he had to do to get out of this fucking city was give his stupid genius brother one stupid lesson in being a spider. Then he could drive his beautiful new truck back down to Houston and never set foot in this horrible, horrible city ever again.

Breakfast was surprisingly tolerable, though that likely had more to do with Aracely being asleep than anything else. But no, as if Kaine's thought had summoned her, she flew into the room. She tackled Peter and he staggered, clearly he'd not expected her super strength. Kaine smirked, served the smug bastard right. Her hug for Mary Jane was much less violent but hardly at all subdued.

Kaine managed to get through the rest of breakfast without destroying any furniture. And, apparently, Peter's spider lessons or whatever the fuck he was calling it were right after. Mary Jane was getting prepared for her day in the bedroom, and Aracely floated around the living room with delight. Peter sulked and pouted and refused to cooperate in even the loosest sense of the word. Kaine was legitimately about to throw him out the window when Aracely intervened.

"No you won't, MJ would be really sad," she said, plenty loud enough to be heard. Even though she was currently playing with Peter's stupid spider drone and seemingly ignoring them. Kaine thought very loud annoyance but then Peter seemed to shrink in on himself.

"Yeah. She would be," he said, quietly. Then gave himself a shake and seemed to perk up. Huh. That was a pleasant change of pace for Kaine.

This time Peter managed to successfully be aware of his stupid spider hip wiggles as he did them. Then, of fucking course, came the science. Making notes of literally everything instead of just letting his body do it and feel his own emotions. Thankfully, Computer chimed and announced Peter needed to prepare for his next meeting. He tried to escape with a pat to Aracely's head, which she turned into a fierce hug.

"It's gonna be okay Uncle Peter. Don't worry about that so much," she told him with her serene, knowing smile. 

"Um, yeah, sure thing," Peter awkwardly agreed. 

"You'll see," Aracely said. Peter ran away into the elevator.

Then Mary Jane was joining them in the living room. Only long enough to say her farewells. Another busy day in the life of a billionaire, model, actress no doubt. And then Kaine and Aracely were alone.

What the hell did someone do with their teenaged super human when they weren't training super powers?

"Oh! We can go to the park! I wanna meet the parrots!"

Well. It wasn't an entirely terrible idea. And on the bright side, he might even get to punch someone.

  
  
  
  
  
  



	6. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaine somehow manages to accidentally volunteer at a youth center. It's all Vance's fault.

"Getting to be a habit, Hero," Justice called out, yet again interrupting Kaine’s attempt at relieving stress via punching assholes in their faces. 

"Fuck off," Kaine offered.

"Thanks for checking in, by the way. Robbie wants you to know that you write emails like a grandpa. It was a near thing keeping him from the reply all button," Justice said. God, could he not bring up his stupid perfect closeted boyfriend for one fucking sentence?

Kaine managed to refrain from punching Justice in his asshole face, but only because he was throwing criminals at him instead. His stupid telekinesis never even ruffled their hair, when they had it. It was infuriating.

“You know, I’m going to a youth shelter, actually. Volunteer there when I can, give back to the community and all that,” Justice said, seemingly out of nowhere and for no reason.

Kaine grunted. Good for him.

“Why don’t you come with me,” Vance suggested. 

“Hell no,” Kaine replied immediately. Vance eyed him skeptically. 

“You have something else you need to do?” Vance said. In a tone that made it very clear he didn’t think Kaine did. 

Kaine thought about going back to the Parker’s and suffering through the ‘Fun Night In’ that MJ and Aracely had managed to rope Peter into joining. Though knowing his brother he’d have snuck out by now to chase after some guy dressed as a lemur stealing cars or some shit. Just the idea of those twin knowing stares made him shiver instinctively.

“Fine. I’ll come with you, but I’m not doing any hand-holdy camp song bullshit,” he said, already having decided that he’d be standing in a corner doing his best statue impression the entire time. 

“Wouldn’t dream of asking,” Justice replied easily. “It’s not too far from here. I think it’d be easiest to walk. You have civvies?” 

Kaine grunted acknowledgment. He thought at his stupid fancy suit that his stupid fancy brother had given him, and the unstable molecules shifted from spandex to jeans and a t shirt. 

Vance raised an eyebrow.

Kaine tilted his head and raised an eyebrow right back.

“Remind me to get your tailor’s number,” Vance said, floating a backpack down to himself from god knows where and telekinetically pulling out a pile of neatly folded clothing. “Until then, I’ve got to do this the old fashioned way.”

Vance took his suit off with telekinesis. A fun fact that Kaine was just now learning, Vance's control was fine enough to get his skin tight suit off without tearing. He had the good sense to at least stop staring as the other man changed. Not that he gave much of a fuck about nudity, but no one liked being watched. Which was a shame, since Kaine could admit that Justice wasn’t too hard on the eyes.

“Okay, all set, let’s go,” Vance said happily, now clad in a pair of well-fitting jeans, and a t-shirt and hoodie combo. Kaine followed him silently out onto the street. There were still way too many people out and about, but at least it wasn’t as crowded as it would have been at rush hour. Vance told him, “Of course you’ll have to sign some papers, but you’ll just be there as a guest, not an official volunteer.”

Kaine offered a slightly more personable grunt of acknowledgement. Vance looked strange in civvies. They seemed too… relaxed for him, or something. But he wore them the same quietly confident way that he wore his super costume. The way that made even that stupid fucking cape look halfway good. “Mostly I just hang around and offer a sympathetic ear. It helps to talk to someone who’s been through some pretty intense stuff like what they’re experiencing.”

“Right,” Kaine nodded absently. Though that did bring up a few questions that he’d never bothered to ask. “Doesn’t it just make things worse with the kids? When you talk about how you’ve killed. I mean, you hero types have overinflated senses of morality, but I don’t see how a kid growing up on the streets is going to relate to a guy who accidentally killed some aliens during an invasion or some shit.”

Vance looked at him then. With his dark hair and dark eyes, and normally bright face dark now, too. His damned defined cheekbones really did help to make him look serious when he wanted to. Turned out Justice really was a handsome guy, under all the spandex and misplaced optimism. Robbie was a lucky man.

“I don’t talk to them about the hero stuff,” Vance said after a moment. “I killed my father when I was a teenager.”

The question burning at Kaine’s throat, the one that he'd never ask, was ‘why?’ For someone like Vance to have killed, there must have been a reason. An actual, legitimate reason that wasn't money or revenge. From everything that Kaine had seen, Vance was almost too careful with villains and criminals. Kaine had doubted that he even had it in him to kill.

Before that day in Houston with the damned Rockets mascot turned giant monster. _"You think you’re some kind of monster? Join the club."_ He’d been so serious when he’d said it, but no amount of gravitas could have hidden that spark of pain in his eyes. Kaine had sure as hell noticed it. It’d given away that Vance wasn’t just talking about their other teammates. Somehow, he’d thought of himself as a monster. It hadn’t made any sense until today.

So Kaine would keep the ‘whys’ to himself. He snapped his mouth shut then said, looking no doubt like an idiot, "Join the club. Mine's just as hard to kill as I am, though. Bastard keeps trying to reprogram me or some shit."

Kaine had not meant to say quite that much on it. Vance's keen brown eyes felt weighted in a way Kaine knew had nothing to do with telekinesis and everything to do with his own messed up thoughts.

“I served time for it in The Vault. It gives me at least a little bit of street cred,” Vance said, apparently deciding that Kaine's volunteering of personal shit was not actually a cause for alarm. Kaine glanced to him just in time to see an unfairly charming shit eating grin as he went on to say “But more importantly, it means I know what a lot of them are going through.”

“Skinny white dude thinks he has street cred,” Kaine said after a moment, huffing a laugh. “I’m sure they think that’s real cute.”

Vance beamed at him. His happy smile was nice, especially without the stupid costume cutting across his cheeks. Vance leaned in close, his smile never wavering. Kaine refused to give an inch of space.

“They absolutely do. I think it helps them to have something to laugh at,” Vance told him conspiratorially. Kaine found himself smiling despite himself. 

“Now it makes sense,” he said. “Shoulda brought the whole damn team, give them something to really laugh at.” 

Vance barked out a laugh at that. “You’re not wrong.”

They made their way to the stupid boys and girls and whatever club in much the same way. Kaine was inordinately pleased that his urge to punch Vance in the face was at an all time low.

“Okay, game face,” Vance said, “We’re here.” 

‘Here’ was a worn out looking brick building covered in graffiti, with a blue sign above the door. It also had spray paint on it. The words before the faded white lettering of Urban Achievers had been so often tagged it was hard to read anything or even figure out if it was supposed to be letters.

The inside was just as charming as the entrance, but it was actually clean. Kids and more kids turned to look at them enter. Everyone, of fucking course, knew Vance. And they had apparently given him a stupid as fuck nickname, too. Vance fielded their curiosity like a veteran at it. Which only made sense, he'd told Kaine that he'd been doing this for a while. Kaine ignored the kids as best he could while Vance found the paperwork that Kaine needed to fill out.

" _Óorale wey. ¿Vas a robar su pinche auto_?" said a scrawny little shit that couldn't have been more than fourteen. Goddammit.

Kaine left Vance and made his way over to these two kids with more _cajones_ than sense. Not that he really knew how to convince teenagers how not to jack a car. For some wild ass reason it had never really come up before. Go fucking figure.

"Get a load of this dumbass _gringo_ ," the kid's friend sneered. What a punk ass idiot.

" _Che_ , I'm not doing time for grand theft, _hombre_. Stealing cars these days is bullshit. They all got fucking computers in them and half the fuckin' things have geolocation crap so even if you do jack it there's no hiding it."

"Oh yeah, you know a lot of shit, bad ass _gringo_? Jack a lot of cars, huh?" The kid that had mentioned car jacking said, clearly unimpressed. Children.

"Can't prove I jacked shit, punk. What are you gonna do once you got the damn things anyways? You already got a chop shop lined up? You two idiots chop it yourselves and you're doing time in federal prison. No swank city digs for that shit," Kaine retorted. Christ on a cracker he was kind of glad he'd never been a teenager. He'd have probably started killing a lot faster and for a lot stupider reasons.

"Yeah, okay, sure _gringo_ , so don't jack cars," conceded the scrawny kid.

"Yeah, okay, the feds ain't no joke or whatever. _Che_ , we'll just steal from tourists. Plenty of easy cash waddling around. Easy pickings," the friend said. What a stunning display of forethought. Abraham save them.

"Oh, sure, because mugging idiots on 'Spider Island' is such a low risk high profit kind of gig. Or maybe you'll get lucky and run into Justice. Bet he'd feel real proud of himself getting you off the streets, huh?" Kaine snapped. He was done. He stalked back over to Vance, not that he was all that far away. Vance handed him a clipboard and he took it with a grunt.

“I should have guessed you’d know Spanish. You did keep insisting for us to take you to Mexico,” Vance said with an amused lilt as Kaine filled out the stupid papers. Great. Not only was Kaine stuck here with a bunch of shithead kids, he also had to do paperwork.

“Yo, Supes,” a white kid with his pants so low they were practically just shoes shouted at Vance. Kaine was cranky enough he contemplated telling this snot nosed twerp what that even meant in prison. But that was definitely not an acceptable topic, maybe ever. The kid was nestled in now among the kids Kaine had talked at earlier. “Who’s this guy, your boyfriend?” 

Kaine didn’t think it worth a response, but by the slightest hint of a smirk on Vance’s face it was clear he did.

“What if he is?” Vance spoke calmly, like the outcome wasn’t important to him, but with just enough of a challenge to his tone that the poor kid sputtered and glanced between them, face red. If Vance wanted to bluff just to make this kid uneasy, Kaine was fully fucking on board. He stood there looking tough, which was easy enough. He didn’t have to change his expression or body language much at all, just lifted his eyebrows, daring any of them to say something.

“Nah, man. That’s cool,” his friend piped up, elbowing the kid in the side. “We’re chill with the gay community and shit.”

“Mike’s just jealous ‘cause he ain't getting laid,” the other kid laughed. It was a little bit pathetic that Kaine could relate.

“Good to know,” Vance said with a laugh, “But he’s not my boyfriend. This is my friend Kaine. He’s an asshole.”

The kids cracked up at that, hooting with laughter and acting like this was somehow a sick burn.

“That’s cold, Supes,” one of the larcenous idiots called 

"It's not cold. I **am** a fucking asshole," Kaine said, not any surlier than usual. Instead of shutting them up they only laughed harder. Ugh, teenagers.

Kaine spent the better part of his evening hanging out with a dozen or so kids and Vance. Sounded like a typical day on Mt. Wundagore, if he was being honest. Slightly fewer unexplained noises but about the same level of obnoxious. He made a mental note to twit Robbie about it then realized he was actually planning a fucking quip and resolved to escape from New York as fucking fast as possible. Damn his brother and his sense of humor.

Vance was, predictably, great with the various teens and pre-teens who were hanging around. Kaine had figured there might be some awkwardness there, but it seemed that Vance’s calm and casual attitude was unshakable. Kaine guessed that was good. Made him approachable, and calmed everyone else the fuck down with him.

Kaine, on the other hand, was anything but approachable. He stood stiffly near the wall, eyes scanning the various pamphlets and notices pinned to a truly ridiculous amount of wall mounted cork boards. Despite his menacing stance and none too friendly expression, two of the little punks worked up the nerve to try talking with him. 

“Hey, Grumpy Dude. How much can you lift?” 

Kaine smirked as they approached. They were bigger than most of the other runts, and had some muscle definition. Clearly, they liked the gym. He was tempted to tell them, but a voice that sounded alarmingly like Peter’s reminded him ‘secret identity’. Right. 

“Why, you want a piggyback ride?” Kaine shot back, much to their vocal delighted disbelief. 

“Yeah, you’re jacked, but you aren’t that jacked,” one of them scoffed, which under normal circumstances would have been fair enough. Big kid like that had to weigh more than even a guy with Kaine’s physique could lift. But these weren’t normal circumstances. Besides, any idiot when asked how much they could lift could declare dumb shit like 'how much you got' or 'the Oscorp building.'

“Wanna bet?” Kaine said. Inside he was grinning like a fox. But outwardly he acted like he could care less. If this was going to be a dick measuring contest, Kaine was going to fucking win. 

“Yeah, alright,” the kid said, and then jumped up onto his back, clearly trying to take him off his feet. Kaine stood there and rolled his eyes.

“Holy fucking shit,” the other kid seemed genuinely surprised. So of course Kaine slung this kid off of his back and swung him around. 

“Yooo are you a super like Supes over there or something?” the kid that hadn't jumped on his back asked. He looked excited, like this was an awesome and not freakish thing.

“I’m not a fucking hero,” Kaine said on instinct. It wasn’t technically true anymore; even he wasn’t in denial that deep. But old habits died hard. And that was a good thing, since there were a whole lot more people in New York who knew Peter and might put two and two together.

“Not all mutants are supers, dumbass,” the kid still gleefully being swung around said. Kaine set him down. The kid punched his friend in the shoulder.

"Not a mutant either. Not like racist assholes ask you where your powers come from before lynching you," Kaine said. Ugh he sounded far too snarky for his liking.

Both kids agreed to that. Whether they were superhuman or not, they were definitely not white. They knew plenty about injustice.

The rest of his time there was surprisingly not terrible. Vance checked up on him periodically but mostly let him be. When the time came to leave, Kaine surprised himself by feeling a twinge of regret that this was already over.

Vance walked with Kaine down the sidewalk. “So, where're you headed?”

Kaine gave him a look. 

“My brother’s place,” he said, leaning weight on the word brother. Vance’s eyes widened a fraction, before he got his expression back under control. 

“Ah, right. So even if you are going my way you can’t tell me,” Vance smiled at him again. It was unsettling how legitimately pleased he was to be spending time with Kaine, of all people. Then again his best bro friend for life was Robbie aka Speedball. Kaine's predictability must be a nice change of pace for him.

Kaine stared at him, no little bit surprised, “You telling me you don’t keep up with the news? Or you just haven’t put two and two together yet?” 

"Pardon?" Vance said. Without his stupid half mask in the way, the way his nose scrunched up in confusion was plain.

"I know I'm a reclusive shithead but you know my name," when Vance still didn't seem to get it Kaine added, "Parker." 

"Parker," Vance said. At first he clearly was confused. But the moment he made the connection he held his hands up to his mouth and a wind that definitely wasn't natural skimmed over the both of them. God damn telekinetic bullshit.

"Yeah, that's my idiot brother," was all Kaine said in response.

"Wow, wow, wow! Oh man I can't! I just! That is so clever! His bodyguard?! Hah!" Vance’s excitement triggered something that was long ago ingrained in him, really in Peter's memories, by Aunt May. The impulse to invite him over.

Kaine crushed it down. That was beyond his level of relationship with Justice. They weren’t even friends for Christ sakes, just teammates on the most ramshackle team Kaine had ever seen. Better to just go home before he ended up ruining what had surprisingly been a good evening by punching Vance in the face or something. Again. With a jolt he remembered what was waiting for him back at PI. Aracely and MJ. They were going to kill him for skipping family time. No, not kill him, but **worse**. They’d be **disappointed** at him.

"You can come back with me if you want to see the training room. State of the art and shit,” he said, feeling awkward. How the hell did people invite friends, or coworkers or whatever, over? Bringing someone back to his place before had always been driven by some kind of bullshit superhero emergency, or a desire by both parties to get laid. Kaine might be a lot of terrible things but a homewrecker wasn't one of them. “I, uh, I guess I could give you the tour?” 

Yeah. The tour of everywhere except the Parker suites, where family night was in full swing. Pun, regrettably, intended. Stupid Peter. If Vance noticed the awkwardness, he at least had the grace not to acknowledge it. 

“You sure that’d be alright with your brother?” Vance asked, a hopeful gleam in his eyes. 

Kaine snorted. “He’s my shithead brother, not my aunt. I don’t have to ask for permission.” 

It was clear that Vance was doing his damndest to reign in his excitement. Kaine appreciated the thought. Though the occasional feather light telekinetic touches were infuriating. It was like Vance was a damned teen or fan boy desperately trying to play it cool and not cling to him. Except with his bullshit powers.

They made the trek back to PI in, at least on Kaine's part, an easy silence. Vance, unsurprisingly, navigated New York's packed sidewalks with ease. They both looked up when what was likely an aerial superhuman chase passed over head. Thankfully, Vance didn't do any dumbfuck shit like try and get involved. The new Iron Man's armor was easily recognizable.

Or was she Iron Woman? No that wasn't it either. Fuck, Kaine had no idea and had never hated New York more.

Something about Vance's unabashed excitement as they entered the lobby had Kaine fighting back a smile. Thank fuck it was too late in the day now for any stupid tour groups or for anyone other than PI employees to be in the building. 

Computer opened the elevator doors without prompting as he walked up. Vance wiggled in excitement. Damn spider instincts, it was just a normal human thing. It was absolutely not an invitation to mate. 

Computer shut the doors behind them and said, "Welcome home Kaine. Shall I make an entry for Mister Astrovik in my systems?"

"Oh my God she's beautiful! She's perfect! She makes the sounds! She has her voice! Oh man I'm so incredibly jealous!” Vance was basically bouncing on his heels. Kaine wouldn’t have been surprised if he started to float. 

Kaine leaned back against the back wall and hid his smile as Vance finally let himself geek out over Parker's stupid computer.

“Oh, sorry,” he amended. “I didn’t ask. Do you prefer ‘she’?”

"Thank you, Mister Astrovik, however I am not a true Artificial Intelligence. As such I have no preference on which pronouns are used when referencing me," Computer volunteered. Kaine had his unhappy suspicions on how exactly that evil fuck Octavious had made her. But this was absolutely not the time to open that can of worms.

"Yeah, he's my guest," Kaine said.

"Thank you Kaine, my systems have been updated. What is your destination?"

"I was promised a tour!" Vance said, he'd gotten a hold of his geeking out now. Kaine wasn't entirely sure why that disappointed him. It was annoying. Wasn't it?

"Yeah, sure. Computer, let's hit the high points of this sparkling blue monstrosity," Kaine said, maybe not quite as gruff as usual.

"Oh man, Kaine, thank you so much for this!" Vance said, all warm and genuine and happy.

Kaine huffed out what might charitably be called a 'you're welcome' sort of sound. Vance, if anything, looked even more intolerably happy. Kaine felt weird and sort of happy about it. God damn it.

Thankfully they were at the first stop on this Computer led tour. Kaine didn't bother to check the floor indicator, eager to escape the unwanted happiness Vance was inspiring in him. And as soon as he stepped out into the garage he really wished that he had. Why the fuck was his truck front and center? Wasn't Vance here to geek out over his brother's gaudy shit?

"Computer, what the fuck?" He said. Computer chimed and brought up the damned misshapen drawing of him that Aracely did. It was already distressingly more full than he’d prefer.

Vance elbowed him in a good natured sort of way and it pissed him off.

"I don't know why Computer thought you wanted to see the Spider Truck. Ugh, sorry. The eye burning monster of a car my brother uses is this way," Kaine said, heading around the finished truck. The finished red and black truck thank you very much.

"Maybe because I'm your guest, not your brother's? This is your color scheme yeah?" Vance said. He was floating up to look over the truck and any second he would probably. Yeah. Okay. Kaine had to remind himself not to punch the asshole holding his truck in their invisible clutches.

Fuck Peter and his damn inherited sense of dramatics. Who the hell thought shit like 'in their clutches'. Vance was just looking at her, his truck. His truck that he'd built himself from the ground up, with only very minor help from his brother. Not including the, you know, money and facilities. Kaine had seen this jerk in action up close and personal, despite how insanely strong Vance's telekinesis was, he probably wouldn't even scuff the paint.

Not that Kaine used something as mundane as paint mind. But still. The Spider Truck was in good, uh, hands.

"Yeah. Yeah it's my truck," Kaine confirmed. Vance immediately set her back down and looked so guilty that Kaine started feeling guilty. Ugh. Dammit why was he so bad at this?

"Sorry, I should have asked before grabbing," Vance said.

"Please. Like you're going to what, drop her? Yeah right," Kaine said with a scoff. The very notion was absurd.

Vance grinned, and back up the truck went as Vance looked it over. “Damn. You tuned her up?”

“Made her from scratch,” Kaine grunted. Vance stopped inspecting and looked over at him. His expression of awe made Kaine feel too warm and twitchy. “What?”

“Nothing. It’s just impressive,” Vance shrugged, placing her back down gently. “You made a hell of a truck.” 

It was suddenly way too hot in the perfectly climate controlled garage. Kaine wished that Peter was capable of accepting compliments so he’d at least have some memories he could use, because he had no idea what to do. At least he knew not to crack jokes.

"Thanks," Kaine said looking away and trying not to rub at the back of his head. Dammit, this was not going how he'd, well, planned might be generous. Ugh. Oh, there was the ugly fucking spider car. A perfect distraction.

"Though if your brain gets tired looking at this abomination I won't tell Peter it was you that dropped it in the Hudson," Kaine said as he stopped in front of the Spider Car.

Vance laughed, floated leisurely over and obligingly lifted the Spider car up for inspection.

"That would be a hell of a slip up. Considering we're underground and on the wrong side of the island," Vance said wryly. 

"I'm just saying," Kaine said. Damn. Not that he'd actually thought a do-gooder that named himself Justice would have done it. But Kaine could hope.

"I must regretfully inform you Kaine that I must tell Mr. Parker the truth in this matter were such an event to occur." Computer added. Kaine was becoming immured to her damned unprompted comments.

"You don't like it either!" Kaine said, it was just entirely unfair!

"Kaine. You are aware that I am not capable of liking nor disliking anything."

Vance's laugh was warm and bright and sent thrills of anticipation through Kaine. Fucking why? Anticipation for what? Punching his way too photogenic face again, maybe.

"Have no fear, Computer. It'll take more than holding such a beautiful car for a little while to get me tired," Vance said in his most gallant Justice voice.

"I hate you," Kaine informed him.

Vance just smiled sweetly at him, and floated up higher to look around the garage.

“Woah! Is that the Spider-Cycle?” 

Of fucking course Vance would know about that. "Ugh, yes. I don't reckon you could throw that piece of junk in the Hudson, either."

Oh no. Dammit. Damn Houston, and Wally and Donald and their embarrassing stupid Texas slang. And damn Texas, while Kaine was at it. Thank fuck Vance didn't taunt him over it. His asshole brother would have never let him hear the end of it for saying something as stupid as 'reckon'. No, Vance just floated with the now also floating ugly fuck motorcycle. He looked lost in thought. Kaine was too experienced with how the multiverse worked to even hope that meant Vance would drop it. But oh he wished it. He wished it so hard.

It was clear though, from the way Vance handled the bike, that this was exactly his sort of vehicle. He'd looked at the truck and car with interest, but this he was damn near in love with.

"I know my way around cars, enough to keep whatever wreck me and Robbie could afford running until I just couldn't get any more out of her," Vance started, all unprompted. What the hell was with Parkers and grease monkeys? Damn Peter's memories of Johnny Storm and Gwen Stacy and how hanging out with Johnny in his garage, this garage, had made Peter feel anything other than empty.

"But bikes," Vance sounded so deeply in love.

Kaine couldn't help the laugh he made. The very image of such a good boy in leathers on a beast of a bike was hilarious.

"Man," Vance chuckled, like the two of them were sharing something deep and meaningful and not just some horse shit about Vance and his closeted boyfriend. Vance's laugh was objectively, intolerably cute. A man that looked like Vance did had just, zero business sounding cute. "I was always jealous. But there was just no way for me to incorporate my bikes with my powers on a regular basis you know?"

Kaine grunted.

"What was I gonna do? Leave a trail of bikes behind me? Or disassemble and reassemble my bike every time I had to leave it behind?" 

Kaine snorted. Like any of them had that kind of money. Except. Kaine did, now. All legal beagle and shit, too. But what kind of weird fuck bought their co-worker a dozen motorcycles? No one did that kind of shit without attaching at least six times the strings to the 'gifts'. Especially someone with a history like Kaine's. Vance floated back down, giving the Spider-Cycle one last reverent pat. 

“Come on, I’ll show you some of the other way too fancy bullshit my brother has around here,” Kaine said, doing his best not to seethe as Computer dinged and added to the swear jar. 

Vance laughed at him, then headed towards the elevator. He paused for a moment as he passed Kaine’s truck, and turned to look at him.

“I have to admit though, your truck is definitely a lot… sleeker than your brother’s car,” Vance said conspiratorially. The warm rush of delight flooding Kaine's chest was unwelcome and unwanted. Thankfully, Vance didn't say anything else and they got into the elevator in silence.

The next stop in this Computer led tour was the training room. Thankfully, it didn't devolve into unasked for sharing sessions or feelings jams or whatever the hell all that had been back in the garage.

After the training room was, well, apparently Kaine's own laboratory.

"Why the fuck do I have a lab. When have I ever even acted like I actually care about science," Kaine said, stepping out with Vance onto the entire floor dedicated to too many stupid things that he didn't care about. 

Computer dutifully added to the swear jar then explained, "Well, given the unique nature of your sibling status with Mr. Parker, he felt it prudent to reserve the facilities for you just in case. Though as he was unsure of your interests there are not many specialized instruments."

"Well, fine. I'm never going to use any of this shit. Just, I dunno, put it all back into company stores. Or let it be up for usage. Whatever," Kaine growled. Vance was meandering through the lab with idle curiosity. Kaine's neglected but still extant need to be a good host kicked in and he caught up with him. Vance smiled at him and Kaine followed him around like a puppy. He felt stupid and clumsy enough to be a puppy, too. Vance commented on a few pieces of equipment and machines that reminded him of something. Usually another story involving his distressingly cute and noble closeted boyfriend in some way. Vance's love for Robbie was plain to see and made Kaine feel like a pathetic piece of shit. 

The lab tour was a thing. It was even a tolerable thing. Right up until Kaine caught sight of genetic resequencing instruments and embarrassingly lost some of his shit.

"Get that shit out right now, Computer," Kaine said. Vance looked at him with wide, warm, brown, and concerned eyes. But he didn't speak. Kaine added, "all of it. I don't want anything in here that O'Hara would like. Got it?"

"Of course Kaine. I am sorry. I should have realized that this equipment would be irrelevant to your interests."

Kaine barked out a sound that might could charitably be called a laugh. 

Vance's concern made Kaine feel something complicated that only grew more intolerable when Vance remained silent.

"C'mon, there's gotta be some place better than this to stare at," Kaine declared before leading Vance back to the elevator.

All unwanted and unasked for the 'better place' was Kaine's quarters. Where two small but mighty terrors were waiting in ambush.

“JUSTICE!!”

Kaine cringed as a girl-shaped blur flung itself at Vance, clinging to him in a crushing hug. “Hi! Kaine wasn’t going to tell us you were here!”

Aracely paused long enough to shoot him a glare, before continuing. “He thought he’d get in trouble for skipping family night, and he is in trouble but I’m so happy you’re here! MJ is gonna ask you up for tea! You should stay! You aren’t imposing, I promise!” 

“Hi Aracely,” Vance said in that slightly bemused, but ultimately fond tone that most people saved just for her. He sounded a bit winded too. Hah. Good on Aracely. Serves Vance right. Letting his guard down around a… shit. She wasn't a Parker. Idiot.

"Kaine is so happy that you like his dumb truck! Not his words, he's thinking about naming it actually. That's how much he cares about it! And I know! I know! Private thoughts! But Kaine never shares even when he should so someone's gotta look out for him, you know? And you know and I know and MJ knows and Kaine knows about my powers so it's okay!"

“Mary Jane,” Kaine said in greeting, Yup. There was that disappointment. God damn it.

“Kaine,” she greeted, her eyebrows raised. Her expression shifted to a kind smile as she turned to face Vance. “I see you brought a friend.” 

Kaine grunted helpless acknowledgement. Goddammit.

“Hello! I’m Mary Jane, Kaine’s sister in law,” she said, face lighting up in delight when Vance reached out to shake her hand.

“Vance Astrovik, it’s very nice to meet you Mary Jane,” he said, so fucking polite and quietly charming. Definitely not the kind of person MJ must have expected him to bring home. For a tour. At night.

“Likewise,” she said, her smile less tight. “You wouldn’t happen to know where Kaine has been tonight, would you? He skipped out on family night on us.”

“Ah,” Vance nodded, casting a quick glance Kaine’s way. “I’m afraid that might have been my fault. I asked him to come help out at the Urban Youth Centre where I volunteer. We’re a little low on staff, and I figured Kaine’s uh… unconventional attitude might be a hit with the kids.”

Relief and gratitude rushed through Kaine as MJ turned that genuine smile onto Kaine. 

“Oh! That’s so wonderful,” she said happily. “Kaine, you should have told us you had plans! We could have picked another night!”

“It was sort of a last minute thing,” Vance assured her. “Kaine isn’t the best at communication, I’m sure you know. It must have slipped his mind that he had a night planned with all of you, and we really needed his help.”

Kaine could honestly kiss him. Or… clap him on the back in a manly hug of gratitude or something. But then he remembered the one problem.

Aracely. 

The nosey little brat was never going to let this fly. But when he looked over to her, she was silent, looking thoughtfully at Vance. She turned that same thoughtful look on him, and then grinned.

“Oh my gosh, Kaine you picked up a guy and swung him around! That’s so funny!”

Vance winced. “Yeah, that wasn’t exactly excellent volunteer behavior, but we’ll let it slide since it was his first day.”

“And last day,” Kaine put in, relaxing a little now. “Where’s Pete?” 

"You'll go back," Aracely said, serenely sure of her prediction. “And Uncle Peter tried to escape but I checked and there were sooooo many heroes on patrol, so we made him stay and do face masks with us! He loves it! MJ and him do them all the time, and I think we need to do them at Wundagore with the whole team! Except maybe Jake Waffles because it’d get all in his fur.”

“He’s still upstairs,” MJ managed to break in, smiling so fondly at Aracely that it made Kaine’s chest ache. “Unless he’s used the distraction to sneak out again. Vance, please come up for a cup of tea if you have the time. We have some sandwiches and I think there might miraculously still be some cheesecake poking around in the fridge after these three tried to demolish it earlier.” 

“Ah, yes. Super metabolisms,” Vance said in a world weary tone. “We have super teens on our team. I know how it goes.” 

MJ laughed enchantingly at that. 

“I’d love to come up, as long as you’re sure I’m not imposing.”

“I already said you aren’t,” Aracely said, floating happily. “Come on! You can see all the cool stuff they have in their house! And talk to Spider-Man without the mask!”

“Except the face mask gunk,” Kaine said. Quipped. Ugh.

Vance smiled at him first, before he turned to MJ. “Well, in that case, lead the way!”

Kaine ground down his pleasure at Vance's smile. He didn't deserve it. Besides, Vance was a taken man. Kaine might be a lot of terrible things, but he'd like to think he wasn't a homewrecker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (minor edits 1/23/2021)  
> Translations:  
> Óorale wey. ¿Vas a robar su pinche auto ?  
> my spanish is pretty terrible but it's supposed to say something like "hey man wanna go jack some fucking cars"
> 
> cajones - balls / testicular fortitude / guts 
> 
> gringo - white boy
> 
> hombre - man


	7. Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aracely manages to drag Kaine along to the New Warriors team bonding time. He bonds with Jake Waffles and Vance entirely against his efforts and will.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Selah and Mark make appearances in this chapter. Here's what you need to know about them.
> 
> Selah Burke alias Sun Girl - daughter of a villain. part of the new warriors. woman of color, black. powers of flight from her super suit, ability to manipulate sunlight. that's canon. for this fic, she's a full time college student that socializes and superheroes with the teen members of the new warriors.
> 
> Mark Sim alias Haechi - inhuman powers activated by the terrigen bomb. family abandoned him when they saw him after his transformation. has a horn on his forehead and claws as well as 'beefier' appearance post inhumaning. man of color, korean descent. powers of energy absorption and dispersal via breath weapon. powers also transform him into a dragon like being if he absorbs enough energy. that's canon. for this fic he's living with the New Warriors in Mount Wundagore and doing remote learning/home schooling for his GED.

Aracely managed to drag Kaine along to team bonding night by telling him it was training. He was both proud and annoyed at her for this. Vance and Robbie weren't with the misfit kids, but Jake Waffles was. For a dog man he was alright. Kaine maybe wouldn't want to stab too many things or people with him here for company. The kids were all riled up just from proximity to each other. Plus the snacks and coke cans that were scattered around the room probably didn’t help. Kaine hung out in the corner on the ceiling and tried his best to ignore the screeching and squealing and chatter. It worked right up until Selah decided to whip out her nail polish collection.

“Who wants to do nails?” Selah beamed around the room, shaking a bottle of pink nail polish cheerfully.

Both Aracely and Sam were on board, but the poor dragon kid looked like he’d rather take on every Inhuman on Earth by himself.

“I would be honored to have my paws made beautiful in such a way,” Jake Waffles told Kaine, after watching the kids pick their colors and start painting.

“Fucking… fine,” Kaine said, figuring the other kids were too busy shrieking and painting each other to bother with the dog. 

Sam was painting Selah’s nails a bright obnoxious yellow, which left Aracely to bully the poor dragon kid. 

“Ooh I could paint your horn!” Aracely shrieked excitedly. Mark looked like he was being attacked by the glittery gold polish in her hand. He kept her away from his horn with frantic energy. Kaine reflected that this was good training for him. 

Aracely pouted, "Why do you keep thinking that?"

Kaine was pretty sure Aracely wasn't addressing him so he continued with his meticulous painting of Jake Waffles' claws. Even with his fur trimmed back it was tricky keeping from getting it stuck in the polish. It wasn't like he had shaved it all off, after all.

"I don't get it, Mark. Why is it such a big deal?" Aracelly asked. She was still brandishing the brush tipped lid of the gold nail polish but no longer actively 'attacking' Mark with it.

"Aracelly, please recall your training," Jake Waffles instructed. Kaine grunted agreement and thought loudly about private thoughts and nosy brats. 

"He's being loud!"

“I’m not,” Mark protested. “I just don’t want you to paint my horn.” 

“Yeah, I **know**. But why would that make you gay?”

Oh Jesus. Kaine wasn’t prepared for this after school special moment.

Mark turned red. “I mean. Isn’t nail polish a girl thing?”

“No way,” Sam said, finishing up Selah’s last nail. “Nail polish is cool. Me and my sister always do each other’s nails.”

Mark looked at Sam thoughtfully. “You do?”

Sam nodded. “Doesn’t mean you’re gay if you like nail polish.”

“And it wouldn’t matter if he **was** gay,” Selah insisted. “Being gay isn’t a bad thing.”

“Right,” Aracely agreed. 

Kaine desperately wished there was another adult in the room besides the dog and himself. Neither of them were cut out to be babysitters. They **definitely** weren’t cut out for teachable moments. 

“What is gay?” Jake Waffles asked, proving Kaine right. 

“It’s when you like someone the same gender as you,” Selah replied. “But it’s a spectrum.”

Jake nodded. “A spectrum you say? I liked Mr. Whiskers. Perhaps I am gay?” 

Kaine groaned. “Where’s Justice when you need him,” he muttered, mostly to himself. 

“He’s outside throwing Robbie around like he’s a bouncy ball,” Aracely informed him gleefully. “It’s actually really fun to watch.”

“Ooh I want to see that!” Selah said. “Do you think we could play basketball with him? Mark could fly with someone. Or keep score!” 

“I’ll keep score,” Mark said, probably wisely. Kaine was just glad Selah hadn’t decided to involve him in her plans. The kids ran out to watch the show, which Kaine could at least admit to himself sounded objectively satisfying.

Kaine instead opted to finish Jake Waffles' claws. He wasn't entirely sure the dog man could see colors but he'd picked out a eye burning shade of green.

"It saddens me that Mr. Whiskers is no longer with us," Jake Waffles said. Great. Perfect. Not only was he cursed to deal with freaking after school special teachable moments he also got to be a part time therapist.

Kaine grunted and kept painting, he was on Jake Waffles' other paw now. Soon enough he could cap the polish and get the hell out of here.

“I felt great affection for him,” Jake continued, sounding so goddamned sad that Kaine felt a twinge of sympathy. 

"He was a real asshole," Kaine grunted. He had liked the cat man. Clearly not as much as Jake Waffles had, but he'd been almost a kindred spirit. Reminded Kaine of himself.

"This is true. It was one of his many attributes that brought me joy," Jake Waffles said. Kaine was incredibly relieved that he'd not upset him with his inept conversational flailing.

Then Robbie crashed through the wall. 

"Hi Jake! Hi Scarlet! Love your claws!" Robbie called out on his way back out.

"Oh dear. I do hope he cleans that up," Jake Waffles said with a soulfully sad expression. Though he sort of always looked like that, being a dog. Kaine finished up the painting and capped the polish.

"Yeah. It'd be nice. Probably leave it to Justice though," Kaine agreed.

Jake Waffles sighed and nodded. He examined his nails while Kaine packed away Selah's nail kit. Damned teenagers, running off without picking up their things.

"The hell don't we have cleaning bots?" Kaine said. More because it seemed like something a place like this should have then because he actually cared.

"Ah, menial tasks such as cleaning were eventually assigned to those like myself and," Jake trailed off. He gazed again at his painted claws and Kaine realized with a start it was the same color of Mr. Whiskers' eyes. Hell. Jake went on. "Well, not at first. But when we became failed experiments we were then assigned to such tasks."

"Fucking bastard," Kaine growled. It didn't matter that the asshole was dead and gone. Kaine knew all too well what being rejected by the man that gave you life felt like.

"What was, is. It is enough that I am still here," Jake Waffles said, being apparently better adjusted than Kaine. Typical.

Kaine grunted. He was glad the dog man was still with them, too. The teenagers were occupied and Kaine was eager to leave. But Aracelly was here and having fun and she'd be upset if he left her. Still, he needed something to do. Something to keep his mind occupied and away from memories of waking up in a pile of corpses with his face and the agony of life.

"Let's make our own bots," Kaine declared. Jake Waffles nodded agreeably.

"A sensible course of action," Jake said.

Mount Wundagore was enormous. There were rooms and rooms full of scrap and defunct sentries and supplies for any number of villainous projects. Kaine had already taken ruthless delight in completely destroying the advanced genetic supplies. It had been one of the first things he'd done when they'd claimed the former villain base for themselves. Mr. Whiskers had joined him in the destruction when it suited him. Kaine shook the memories away. What was here now was still more than enough for a whole army of cleaning bots. He and Jake Waffles set to work.

* * *

Hours later, Vance found him still working. He was followed into the room by a spider themed cleaning bot. 

“Ah. So this is where the little guy came from. I was worried that he was some kind of infiltration attempt, but all he’s done is follow me around and beep,” Vance said, smiling. 

Kaine couldn't hide his blush, too used to wearing his mask. But he ignored it and glared at the offending bot. It set itself in an aggressive stance and buzzed at him. Kaine huffed and very maturely resisted the instinctive urge to smack the posturing little bot away.

"That's new," Vance said, clearly amused.

"Well it's supposed to clean up messes," Kaine said. “Not do whatever the hell it’s doing now.” 

Another buzz and aggressive wiggle was his response. Ungrateful little shit. Kaine continued to ignore it.

He focused intently on his current bot. He'd lost count of how many he'd made. Jake had left him a little while ago. He'd been the one to suggest themed bots. After Kaine had made a few spider bots without even realizing he'd themed them. None of them had paint, just metal, usually not even gleaming but matte. After all they were supposed to be unobtrusive little cleaners. 

He'd made at least one for each New Warrior on the roster. Kaine had never met the old team. His stolen memories from Peter weren't helpful, he had known vaguely of them but generally kept to himself. He'd decided against basing any bots on those members. Who knew what long buried memories seeing them would dig up in Vance and Robbie.

Vance still hadn't left. He seemed perfectly content to watch Kaine work. It was unnerving but at the same time Kaine was glad that he had Vance's attention.

The current bot he was working on had no theme, like the majority he and Jake Waffles had made. Kaine had made three of the stupid spider bots before realizing he was theming them. Hopefully the other two were doing their jobs.

"Let me know if it's bothering you, I can let it harass my brother instead," Kaine offered.

"I'll keep that in mind," Vance said. Kaine couldn't stop blushing like a freaking school girl at Vance's study of himself. He resolutely ignored his stupid body and uploaded the simple program into the bot and activated it. It beeped then ran through its diagnostics. It gave a double beep and trundled on out of the room. Or tried to. The spider bot pounced on it and there was a very annoying 'conversation' that sounded like a damn dial-up modem screaming into life. Then it skittered away and hid next to Vance with a self satisfied double beep. The new bot righted itself with an indignant buzz and left.

"Wonder what all that was about," Vance commented. He sounded much more amused than concerned. Kaine huffed and glared at the contrary bot.

"Pecking order," Kaine grunted. He began assembling the next cleaning bot for lack of anything else to do. 

Vance made an unfairly attractive hum of acknowledgement and returned his attention to Kaine. He watched him work in silence. Kaine felt no need to fill it. When this bot was finished and had booted up, again there was a little scuffle. Again the spider bot smugly beeped it's satisfaction from nearby Vance. Kaine began again. He hadn't been keeping track and while he was sure there were more than enough bots to keep even the teen heavy New Warriors' base clean Kaine found it cathartic to turn wasted scraps into useful tools.

Kaine blushed all over again when Vance used his telekinesis to move the parts Kaine needed to him as he needed them. He didn't comment and neither did Kaine. But Kaine definitely had plenty of thoughts about this. He'd been paying enough attention to know what Kaine needed. From just the one assembly. Vance was much more than just a pretty boy with incredible powers. 

And Robbie had gotten to him first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> minor edits made 1/23/2021
> 
> i'm v proud of the cleaning bots i think they're cute thank you


	8. Chapter Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kaine runs into Miguel and completely fails to grasp that being flirted with is a way to show someone you want them.

“MJ is taking me shopping!” Aracely called out, bright and cheerful as ever. “You should come with us!”

“Abso-fucking-lutely not,” Kaine snapped. He couldn’t even imagine shopping with them. Never mind that he had memories of Peter going along with Gwen and MJ when they were younger. Computer brought up the swear jar drawings.

"You'd have fun!" Aracelly sang out as he left. Kaine thought loudly about how fun punching assholes was just to be contrary. He didn't need to be here when MJ stopped by. No doubt she'd also try to drag him along. He wasn't entirely sure she'd be unsuccessful, either.

He stalked his way towards the elevator, ready to tear something up. The doors opened, but not onto an empty elevator car like Kaine was expecting. The future Spider-Man, Miguel O'Hara, was back.

"Don't you fucking dare," Kaine snarled, voice full of malice and intent. The bastard just had to be here to squat in Ben's rooms. Kaine studiously ignored Computer's addition to the swear jar.

O'Hara still looked like fried shit on a cracker, but he was undeniably attractive all the same. Especially when he quirked his eyebrow like that and let his fangs poke out of his closed mouth.

"Don't use his rooms," Kaine graciously clarified. He still wanted to punch the bastard, but it was only fair of Kaine to explain why.

"Whose? I didn't even know those tacky rooms _de escarlata_ belonged to you," Miguel said.

Kaine growled and stepped aside. Miguel didn't so much as walk out as sag. Or maybe slop. He wasn't really moving like a person now, much less a spider. Kaine felt unwanted sympathy for the man. He'd been there before, too many times to count.

"Our brother," Kaine told him, then jerked his head to his own rooms. "Use my rooms if you need 'em. But you open Ben's door again and I'll kill you."

Miguel looked between Kaine and Ben's door.

_"Miguel, cut it out and take the angry meathead's offer."_

"Are you ever not on speaker phone?" Kaine snapped, exasperated.

Miguel and the person laughed. While they sounded genuinely delighted over this, Miguel only sounded as broken as he looked.

_"I'm his personal artificial intelligence, bit-head, call me Lyla,"_

"Ugh, computers," Kaine groaned. Still, he led the two of them back into his own suite. 

"Hi! I'm Aracely! Wow you're loud too! But you're definitely not his brother. Are all spiders so loud? I should ask Sam. No wait Sam wouldn't know. I should meet Sam's team! Have you met Sam's team?" Aracely said in all one breath. Miguel blinked very slowly at her. Lyla remained silent.

"Don't scare my kid. And take a fuh- shocking shower."

"Swear jar!" Aracely sang. Computer dutifully brought up the swear jar and added to it.

"Seriously?! Shocking isn't even a real fucking swear!" Kaine snapped. Aracely frowned over at him.

Kaine stormed back out of his rooms to the sound of two more swears being added and Lyla's cackling laughter. He'd forlornly hoped that maybe the stupid future swear wouldn't set off the swear jar. He would sound stupid, sure, but it had to be better than the tool he sounded like now.

Miguel and Lyla became an inconsistent presence in Kaine's life after that. The only consistent thing about the future Spider was how terrible he always looked. Like he'd just got his ass handed to him by a gang of spider killers or something. It was genuinely concerning considering his healing factor but Kaine didn't bring it up. If the half broken spider from the future wanted to talk about it, he would. Until then, Kaine would aggressively ignore him unless directly spoken to. No sense encouraging him in… Whatever the hell he thought their relationship was. Because Miguel definitely had thoughts on Kaine and relationships. Not that the sharp blue asshole ever did anything about it besides annoy him.

"Mornin' beefcake," Miguel would greet him with, whenever one of them woke up. Kaine couldn't stop his blushing but he never gave him the satisfaction of a response. Casually fucking his roommate seemed like something so stupid only his brother would do it. Miguel kept teasing, kept doing everything **except** actually ask Kaine to do something, anything, about his damned horniness over ex-supervillains in red and black spandex.

Miguel checked his language and toned down the flirting around Aracelly but that was about it. She didn't seem phased by him, thank God. He seemed more bewildered by her than anything else. It was kind of nice. Not that Kaine allowed himself to feel nice about this. Miguel was going to get his sharp, prickly self back to the future soon enough. Kaine had no delusions on being invited to join him. Even if the idiot future spider ever did get his act together and do something about his lust.

A few days after Miguel staggered unavoidably into his life, he left. Kaine knew the bastard wasn’t staying long but he’d at least expected… well hell, he didn’t know. If the future spider was anything like himself or Peter then Kaine was an idiot for expecting anything at all. Breakfast with the Parkers and his kid, his niece dammit. Breakfast was torturously domestic and chatty. Kaine responded even less than usual. 

“He’s just cranky because Miguel hasn’t been back in three days,” Aracely cheerfully informed the table. Kaine glared at her and thought loudly about swinging through the sewers in retaliation. She scrunched her nose up and stuck her tongue out at him. 

“Oh yeah? Computer can keep tabs on-” 

“Shut up. No. I’m not going to track him like a villain,” Kaine barked out around his mouthful of food.

“It isn’t villainy to keep an eye out on the people you care about!” Peter said, indignant. 

“I don’t care about that sharp blue bastard!” Kaine snarled.

“Swear jar,” Aracely said, along with a grinning Peter and a placidly calm Computer. Mary Jane at least didn’t torment him about swearing.

“Bastard isn’t a swear! It’s a description!” Kaine protested. Computer dinged him yet again.

“He knows who his father is so it’s totally a swear!” Aracely insisted.

“How the hell am I supposed to know he knows who his father is?!” Kaine retorted.

“You should ask him, Kaine,” Mary Jane informed him. Kaine growled and glared and shoveled enough food in his mouth even he couldn’t talk around it. He was surrounded by nosey little twerps. 

Aracely rolled her eyes. Even though she didn’t say anything Kaine knew it was at him. He stubbornly kept eating and ignored the rest of the breakfast conversation. 

* * *

Aracely floated nearby Kaine, meditating. It clearly did her good, and seeing her actually peaceful did Kaine good, too. Kaine was busy with learning the basics of business. The more he learned the more he was sure it was really just legal villainy. But that meant that Kaine had an advantage over the other bastards he’d inevitably have to deal with. Assholes that didn’t like getting their hands dirty were easy enough to blackmail into compliance. Kaine’s cheerful thoughts on PI’s Board of Directors were interrupted by a phone getting a message. 

Kaine pulled out his phone and glared down at its message-less screen. 

“I’m going to Mt. Wundagore to hang out with Sam!”

Kaine snapped his gaze to his way too cheerful and naïve kid. 

“Oh my gosh,” she said, drawling it out in the most annoying way possible. “It’s just Sam!”

Kaine stood up and shut down the holo screens. 

“Seriously! What’s Sam going to do?” Aracely insisted. Then said, “Gross, no way. He’s not gonna kiss me! He doesn’t even like me like that!”

“Private thoughts,” Kaine reminded her.

“It was before I got better at ignoring him!” Aracely said, no longer anything resembling peaceful now. As if to enforce this thought she blinked into her Hummingbird costume.

“So you don’t know how he feels now,” Kaine pointed out. He followed her to the penthouse balcony and thought at his familiar super suit until it formed around him. “Besides, he’s trouble.”

“He is not! He’s funny and nice and kinda dumb sometimes!”

“Trouble,” Kaine reiterated. 

For all of Aracely’s very vocal complaints and seemingly earnest defense of the kid Nova, she did fly him across the bay to their base. In what had once been one of far too many labs, the teen heavy team had set up a kind of living and gaming area. The scrawny Nova brat was busy floating alongside the Nova themed cleaning bot. As far as Kaine could tell he was trying to get it to let him take it apart. It was not agreeable. 

“Sam! Hi!” Aracely shrieked in delight. Kaine winced. The little bot took its inspiration’s distraction as a chance to make a break for it. 

“Aracely! Hey, what’s up!” Sam said back, at a much less painful register and volume thankfully. Then the little space shit noticed Kaine, “Grumpy Spider-Man! Long time no see! Mark says you made these cleaning droids and you didn’t even paint them?! What’s up with that!”

“Scarlet. Spider,” Kaine bit out for what felt like the millionth time. “They’re vacuums that move. They don’t need to look good.”

The brat scoffed at him and Kaine ignored him. He pounced up to the darkest corner and stayed there. One of the spider themed bots buzzed at him and scurried away. Kaine despaired that none of the stupid themed bots did their damn jobs. 

* * *

Kaine had dozed off to the sounds of teenagers playing video games. He had no fucking idea how he’d managed that. He’d at least stayed sticking to the ceiling, Christ that would have been embarrassing. He slunk away, intending to leave without anyone the wiser.

“Scarlet!” A voice tried to stop him in his tracks before he could escape. But it took more than that to stop Kaine when he wanted to get the fuck out. He knew he shouldn't have swung out here. Definitely shouldn't have hung around to glower at Sam Alexander while he played videogames with Aracelly. Especially since the little shit insisted on calling him 'Grumpy Spider-Man' and gave every indication of having zero fear of Kaine. It wasn't good, and it sure as hell wasn't healthy. All it'd take for the kid Nova to bite it would be just one near fatal blow to Kaine and then The Other would be free.

“Justice,” Kaine grunted in greeting, not slowing down at all. Unfortunately, the man in question picked up his pace to walk alongside him. 

“How’ve you been?” Vance asked amiably. 

“Who’s here?” Robbie’s voice called from out of sight. 

Vance smiled widely at the way Kaine shook his head viciously; clearly enjoying harassing him by calling out, “It’s Scarlet Spider.”

Robbie came bouncing, quite literally, into the hall, a huge smile plastered on his face. He’d learned that the best way to get under Kaine’s skin was to be **nice** to him. Robbie was extremely good at being nice. And cheerful, and happy. It was insufferable. 

“Heeeyyy Scarlet,” Robbie greeted merrily. “Long time no see.” 

Kaine grunted in response. Robbie seemed to expect that reaction, and went right on smiling. 

“Hah! So I hear that ‘ol Supertights here swindled you into doing his volunteering for him,” Robbie said, beaming as Vance groaned.

“Super tights?” Kaine asked, almost gleefully. When he looked to Vance the man was running his hand down his face, looking pained.

“Robbie, I thought we talked about using that stupid nickname in front of the team,” he said in a longsuffering tone that sounded deeply ingrained by years of dealing with Robbie.

“Did we?” Robbie asked, slinging an arm around Vance’s shoulder. “Don’t remember that, Marvel Boy.”

Usually such a sweet scene would make Kaine sick to his stomach. And it did. But **Marvel Boy.** It was too beautifully terrible to pass up.

“Please tell me that was an actual name he used,” Kaine said to Robbie, but his grin was for Vance.

“It might have been,” Vance said, sounding pained. “We all made mistakes when we were younger.” 

Kaine laughed, the sound less harsh than he'd meant for. "But those mistakes weren't **Marvel Boy**." 

Robbie cackled gleefully. Clearly he agreed with Kaine. Vance looked resigned to his lot in life. As he should, falling for an insufferable asshole like Robbie. Kaine had no idea how he stood his partner long enough to hold hands and make twitterpated eyes at each other. Kaine felt like a disgusting piece of trash as even here and now he couldn't stop himself from looking at Vance's lips just a little bit too long, or admiring the warmth and love in his brown eyes as he gazed at Robbie 

"Thanks for the fuel, Speedball. Now fuck off. Both of you. I'm leaving."

"Awww, we love you too, boo," Robbie said, oozing over the top saccharine sweetness.

“Hey, keep in touch okay?” Vance said, his hand resting heavy on Kaine’s shoulder. “The team misses you. We like to hear how you’re doing.” 

His expression was so serious that it should have been laughable. But instead, something in Kaine’s stomach flipped. 

"Fuck off," Kaine said, mostly on reflex. But Vance deserved something a bit better than his standard offering. He managed a way too heartfelt "Thanks." 

He ran.

Well, swung. But he got the fuck away from god damned Vance and his way too nice and cute boyfriend. At least he didn’t have to worry about Speedball and Aracely. 

Apparently, he had to worry about himself and Justice. God fucking damn it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kaine is an idiot and i love him.   
> also my anxiety is screaming at me that this is stupid so don't get too excited about the quick update becoming a thing, thanks brain


	9. Chapter Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: referenced past suicidal thoughts; mentions of Gwen Stacy's death; mentions of dead bodies and implied rape of other characters

The next day, Miguel was back. He again looked like he’d come out of the wrong end of a wood chipper. Kaine didn’t comment and Miguel didn’t offer. Lyla was as aggravating as ever. Kaine wondered if he just had some kind of invisible ‘harass me’ sign that only computers could see. 

Kaine had his suite’s furniture rearranged while Miguel was away. And while he hadn’t had the wherewithal to set up a separate guest room he did have a room for Aracely now. The damned future spider apparently took this to mean that Kaine’s bed was actually his bed. It was infuriating and frustrating but at least the couch was still ridiculously comfortable. 

"You're kinda loud, too. But it's nice. Like a buzzy bee!" Aracely said one day. It was just the three of them. Kaine looked at her. Miguel was absorbed in whatever he was doing on his tablet phone thing. Aracely clarified, "Lyla, I mean."

"I'm not saying anything. Why would I be loud?" the AI asked. She wasn't projecting, well, hadn't been projecting a body. She was now, vibrantly yellow and wearing what Kaine assumed was fashion in the twenty-first century. Lyla seemed to have a soft spot for his kid and it made Kaine unaccountably fond of her. Especially considering how she treated him like her own personal entertainment center.

"Your thoughts, Lyla," Aracely said with a giggle. Like Lyla was telling a joke. Huh. Kaine hadn't even considered Lyla, or any true AI, as having thoughts able to be sensed by a telepath. Was it just an Aracely thing or could any telepath do it, they just had to try? Kaine didn't know and didn't want to bring it up in case no one else had thought about it. No sense looking for trouble when it seemed to find him just fine all on its own.

Lyla looked surprised. Miguel remained oblivious. Kaine was fairly sure he might need to know this kind of thing but also didn't know enough about the future to know if he was already aware of the possibility. So Kaine watched him while Lyla tried valiantly to keep track of Aracely's conversation. Kaine knew it was hopeless to keep up if you weren't who she was talking to. And even then Kaine had the advantage of exposure to interpret the way she jumped from topic to topic.

Miguel looked better today. Kaine couldn't see any sign of last night's injuries. And he'd even showered when he'd woken up. His hair was still damp and even in the stupid blue robe he was good to look at. Not for the first time Kaine thought about Miguel laid out on his bed. He shied away from the thought, both because Aracely was right there and, well, Miguel maybe was this flirty and shameless with  **everyone** . Was this his way of coping? No way could his uptight brother handle him acting like this. Although Peter was married, maybe that was why they could get along? The future spider must just be like this, Kaine reasoned. Kaine already knew he delighted in tormenting him. He and Lyla were certainly a pair in that.

"See something you like, Beefcake?" Miguel asked with an infuriatingly sexy grin. 

"Shut up," Kaine offered, blushing hard. Thankfully Computer interrupted before anything even more humiliating could happen.

"Kaine, you are needed for training with Mr. Parker before your afternoon meeting."

Kaine fled with not even a glance back.

“He really likes you, you know?” He heard Aracely say like a traitor as he rushed himself down the hall. 

"Private thoughts!" Kaine shouted back. Not that he was entirely sure it would do anything helpful. But at least it made him feel better.

* * *

The spider training or what the fuck ever Parker was calling it was in his suite again. Kaine was absolutely going to go broke dealing with his idiot brother and the swear jar. 

“Computer, disable swear jar until I’m done training with Parker.”

Thankfully Computer chimed acknowledgement and declared, “Swear jar temporarily disabled”

Kaine didn’t waste any time with chit chat. He got more than enough of that stupid fucking domestic bullshit at breakfast. The sooner they did this the sooner it was over.

“Oh, hey bro, how’s it hanging,” Peter greeted him.

“Shut the fuck up,” Kaine offered. God he hated fucking puns and wordplay so much. Stupid fucking genetics. "Okay. I've showed you that your stupid wiggling is spider shit. And you were already sciencing all over with it, so what the hell do you need me for now?"

“Show me what the mating wiggle is?” Peter requested. 

Kaine grunted acknowledgement. This was at least something he could actually do.

"Pay attention. I'm only doing this once," Kaine said.

Peter nodded and locked his gaze onto Kaine. It made him uncomfortable as hell but whatever. Kaine closed his eyes and thought of Miguel. About his hips moving ever so slightly in that absolutely hypnotic way that made all other thoughts leave Kaine’s head. 

“Ew okay, that made me feel really gross,” Peter said, wrinkling his nose. “Are you sure that’s supposed to be sexy?”

“It’s obviously not sexy to  **you** ,” Kaine said, exasperated. “You’re my brother. Just think hard about MJ and watch what your body does.” 

Peter put on his serious expression and stared at himself in the mirror. It didn’t take too long for his hips to move and his face to heat.

“Oh!” He exclaimed, like he’d made some sort of great discovery. “I did it!”

Kaine rolled his eyes. He got what Peter meant before though. Watching Peter move like that just made him recoil in disgust. 

“I have to show MJ that,” Peter said, all excited about it. 

"Good," Kaine declared. Thank fuck that was all Peter's responsibility. Kaine was pretty sure he'd literally die yet again if he had to show Mary Jane what spidery body language inviting mating looked like.

“So like, why can’t I, you know,” Peter gestured vaguely with his hands. “Tie her up and stuff,” he finished pathetically.

"Fucking, why the hell," Kaine cut himself off. He closed his eyes and took a steadying breath. "Okay. I don't know."

"Oh," Peter drooped, looking almost comically forlorn. 

"Look, just," Kaine sighed, why had he agreed to this? Why the hell was he even still in New York? Kaine went on, "Just show Red the wiggle and see if it helps with the weird food thing. And the running away."

“Sure,” Peter said, sounding fairly hopeless. “Maybe that’ll work.”

"For fucks sake. You haven't even tried yet," Kaine huffed.

“Alright alright. Oh! Hey! So Miguel told me you’re letting him room with you!” Peter said, far happier now that they’d moved on from his… issues. Kaine almost would rather they get back to that but actually no. No he would not.

"He was using Ben's rooms. It was either that or I got a new spider skin rug," Kaine told him. Then he frowned and glowered at Peter. "I'd thought the sharp asshole was avoiding you. When'd you two have a chat?"

“What? Since when has he been avoiding me?” 

Kaine flung his hands up in exasperation, "the hell am I supposed to know? Just, you know, those are Ben's rooms, yeah?"

"Well, yes," Peter said. Optimistic idiot.

"Then why was he hiding in them?!" Kaine tried to point out.

“No idea. Future reasons probably? Anyways, point is, a) he’s not avoiding me… I think… and b) you two are getting along!” Peter smiled proudly at him, like Kaine was his kid who’d made a friend at school. 

Kaine groaned in annoyance. "Yeah, fucking sure. Whatever, we're done. When Red gets back show her how to wiggle-"

"Wait wait wait! I gotta teach MJ?"

Kaine stared at Peter. Jesus fuck how could Peter be so stupid.

"How am I supposed to-"

"No. I don't care. Figure it out on your own," Kaine announced. He immediately left the damn Parker Suite. Peter followed. Kaine told him, "Fuck off"

“No can do,” Peter said. “I don’t really understand the whole wiggling thing and now I have to teach  **her?”**

"Computer, Scarlet Suite!" Kaine ordered the elevator. Peter followed him right in. Kaine asked,  "You did your science crap. What else is there to understand?" 

"How about all of it? Like literally all of it!"

"Look, yes okay, I made notes. But that doesn't really help me out in, well definitely in teaching someone. Especially when I still don't understand it myself!"

Kaine stormed into his rooms with Peter following him like a goldfish turd. Why couldn't he go away. Why. And Miguel was still here. Still in that fucking bathrobe. Of fucking course he was.

"How! Why! You just, you feel something then you wiggle about it and there! That's the shitting thing you're saying!" Kaine continued.

“But… but… oh hey Miguel,” Peter said, greeting the future spider. 

" _ Hola  _ Parker Brothers," Miguel said, smirking and looking right at Kaine. Damn him and his fangs, poking out like that when he grinned.

"Heh, good one," Peter acknowledged.

"Shut the fuck up, Blue," Kaine snapped, appalled at his own internal amusement at the word play.

"But seriously! It's not that easy!" Peter went on, following him into his damned dressing room.

"How's that now?" Miguel asked, because apparently the damned future Spider had nothing better to do. The Other stirred restless in the back of Kaine's mind.

"God. Fuck. You teach this idiot about body language!" Kaine snarled with a rough gesture at his brother. He grabbed a pair of jeans and a damned cowboy shirt. They had a meeting to get on with.

"Hmm, nah," Miguel said, the fucking shit. He looked the clothes over with interest. Right, he'd not been around to see the clothes for his stupid business persona. Kaine hated Peter so fucking much right now.

"Do you get the wiggles, Miguel? Seriously man, I could definitely use the insight of someone whose head isn't up their ass," Peter said. Kaine stripped out of his sweatpants and pulled on the boot cut jeans.

"Hah! Like you're one to talk about heads in asses!" Kaine snapped back. He shrugged into the stupid button up shirt with too damn much embroidery on the shoulders. He buttoned it up on his way to the damned custom made dresser.

"The wiggles? What is that, some twencen disease?" Miguel asked, not all that interested in Peter's inane conversation. Miguel's gaze seemed to burn into him but Kaine resolutely ignored it. He hadn't asked the other spider to follow him. If he had a problem he could get out.

"No no, I mean the wiggles. Like when you wiggle your hips because whatever spidery reason, you know?” Peter said. 

“Ah, those wiggles,” Miguel acknowledged. 

Kaine had yet to wear any other belt buckle besides the spider one. It really was the best of the bunch. He thought hard at the unstable molecules of his 'old' suit and it became the stupid bolo tie for this outfit. 

"Yes! Those wiggles! How do you know which wiggle to wiggle?" Peter asked, managing to say wiggle way too many times. Kaine studiously ignored him.

"Huh. I dunno, I just do it. Sorry Spidey," Miguel said, clearly sounding distracted. 

"You sure don't sound very sorry." 

"Can't say I am," Miguel said, his gaze hungry like he wanted to devour Kaine. The Other hissed and the urge to signal to the future spider 'not prey; mate' grew strong. Kaine ignored it. It was infuriating. Kaine was completely clothed and had been ignoring the future spider with a vengeance as he'd changed. Miguel went on "but if you're who I owe for getting me  _ Araña Vaquero Escarlata _ then I'll try and see what I can do to help."

“Thanks!” Peter said, oblivious to the sexual tension that was clearly in the room. “Wait…” he said after a beat, looking between Miguel and Kaine like he was trying to put something together. Oh fuck no.

"C'mon, idiot, if you're late to this I swear those assholes are gonna go supervillain on you,” Kaine said quickly.

“Ughh yeah, they’re close to being a whole new villains gallery right now as it is,” Peter said, but he was still squinting between them suspiciously. 

Kaine turned on his heel, leading the way out. Thankfully Peter followed. Less thankfully, so did Miguel.

“Have a good meeting,” the sharp blue asshole said, his eyes dragging up and down Kaine’s body like a caress. Jesus shitting Christ. Did he have to do this shit in front of his brother? True to Kaine’s terrible life, Peter did not drop his stupid thought.

“So, you and Miguel, huh?” Peter said in the elevator. He looked thoughtful. Introspective. Good, hopefully it kept him up at night. The nosey asshole.

“Fuck you,” Kaine told him. If only Miguel actually did anything about his stupid whatever the hell instead of ogling Kaine and snarking off shit seemingly designed entirely to piss him off.

The meeting was as terrible as any other, but at least it wasn’t worse.

After, Kaine almost went back to his room to change. But Miguel was likely still there and he had no idea what to do with or about him. Especially if the future Spider followed him and watched him again. Kaine was greedy and weak and if Miguel touched or kissed him then Kaine wouldn't stop him. But Miguel was clearly working through some shit, like oh, the sudden violent loss of his fiancé. 

Kaine found himself in the garage. His truck was finished, working on her now would be worse than pointless. Kaine made his way through the garage slowly, looking at the mostly gaudy blue and red messes that belonged to his brother. Kaine hadn't been wrong, before, about this still being the same garage. Nearly none of the other floors were the same, but this one was.  He prowled through the garage. There were more cars in here than the spider themed vehicles. So Kaine inspected them, trying to keep himself away from the temptation that was one Miguel O'hara.

It was almost going well. He was successfully distracting himself from thoughts of the future spider and if not having fun then at least not being outright miserable.  Until Kaine saw The Car.

Kaine stared at The Car. He recognized it of course. He could be half dead and blind and brain damaged and know this car. As far as Kaine knew, all of the Fantastic Four's possessions were divided up and sold to the highest bidder. Kaine wondered what Peter had done to get this car back. Not that he would ever ask. He was surprised that Peter remembered the car though. It wasn't really his thing.

"Parker doesn't even take care of you, does he, Old Girl?" Kaine said aloud. Computer didn't do anything creepy. Kaine couldn't help but remember, from out of Peter's eyes, Johnny working on this car. Working on her while Peter was broken and lost and maybe even halfway to letting go of a web-line and— no. Kaine had been there before. Remembering his brother's pain wasn't going to help Miguel get through his own.

"Well I'm not him, and Storm will kick my ass for even looking at you. But I can at least make sure you're ready for that flame brained asshole when he gets you back," Kaine said. 

He started by dusting her off. Peter's memories of Gwen were strange for Kaine. Peter had loved her deeply, intensely and passionately. Kaine knew this because he felt it in his stolen memories. But for Kaine, Gwen was his sister. There had been more than one pile of rotting corpses below Jackal's lair, after all. Many of them with blonde hair. The tires were all wrong, show tires. Storm actually used his cars, this old gal needed street legal tires. Kaine pulled up the holo-screens and had the systems pull the right tires and set them in the bay. 

He'd known of their fate. The clones of Gwen Stacy. But he'd been too new and stupid to understand what it meant, to be alone with their father like that. Not like he knew now. Then, it'd seemed like some unattainable paradise to him. Days old with a stranger's memories echoing in his empty head and pain screaming along every nerve, it had seemed such a little thing to him for them to give. Just remembering made him want to vomit. Or kill the bastard that made him again. Maybe both.

Kaine checked under the hood and huffed in annoyance. Whoever had gotten this before Peter had found it had gaudy fucking show paint all over the guts of the car. It was going to be a bitch to fix this. Either getting new parts or blasting the paint off of these ones. Not that he had to do either. But this car was too important to leave languishing in the back of the garage without anything at all done to it.  The thought made Kaine grimace. The old girl had way too much love put into her. Kaine was going to be plenty busy restoring her to her proper state.

Being with Johnny had been so good for Peter. Hell, whether Storm knew it or not, he was Peter's best and closest friend. But thinking about all of this, remembering his brother's hardships, it reminded him of Miguel's situation. Miguel was hurting and in typical spider fashion dealing with it badly. But even though Kaine knew he shouldn't do anything with the future spider, he wanted to. Even now he was hiding from him. Hiding because he knew he was weak and pathetic and greedy and he'd never be able to turn away Miguel if he finally touched Kaine with the intent to fuck.

Kaine wasn't good and noble like Johnny Storm. Kaine didn't need anyone to remind him. He'd never forget. He was a monster. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have the issues where Johnny and Peter bond after Gwen's death. So I'm using memory as reference. apologies.


End file.
